A proposed solar farm in McLean County would be the largest in the county at 300 megawatts of power. Deriva Energy, based out of North Carolina, would develop the Dawson Solar project located nine miles southeast of Bloomington-Normal.
Deriva said the project represents about $563 million in direct and indirect investments in McLean County in jobs, construction output, tax benefits and earnings. The company estimates the project would generate $65.6 million in property tax revenue over the solar farm's 40-year lifetime. The bulk of that money would to the Tri-Valley school district in Downs [$45.3 million].
The project is on track to begin construction in mid-2027 and start operation in late 2028.
Jevonté Blount is the public policy coordinator for Deriva Energy. He said the farm will meet growing demand the company sees across the country, and McLean County proved to be an attractive location.
“McLean County is great because we have landowners that are willing to lease their land for solar, the local government support is there, they’ve approved past projects,” Blount said. “McLean County also has access to high voltage transmission, when we build these solar projects, we need to have to have interconnection to existing voltage line and there’s existing transmission lines.”
An attractive site for a solar farm, according to Blount, has ample sunlight and minimal shading, along with flat land and existing power lines. Blount said McLean County met all necessary criteria.
Deriva held an open house Wednesday in Normal to gather community feedback. Blount said they wanted to gather concerns of residents and answer their questions. Chief among those concerns was whether the solar farm would take valuable farmland and be too close to their residencies.
Some people believe potential solar farm sites could be better utilized for crops. Blount said Deriva tries to push back on the misconception they are taking up too much farmland.
“We actually also have a chart where if we were electrifying the grid with 45% of solar projects, it would only take up one to two acreage of land across the United States,” Blount said. “Farmland, it’s good, it gets used temporarily for 30 years and if the farmer wants to go back to farm their land after the solar project, they can.”
At least two residents at the open house said they were upset with the proximity of the farm to their homes. They were not comfortable with it being across the street from them.
Blount said Deriva was taking exit surveys to follow up with residents who were worried and work with them to help find a solution, because they want to “be a good neighbor.”
“We work with them, sometimes in some cases we can change our project plans,” he said. “We don’t make promises, but we can but sometimes we can change our project plans based on the neighbor’s feedback.”
One solution is a vegetative screening, where Deriva would attempt to use the natural plants around the farm to help it better blend in with the area and lessen the visual impact of it to residents.
Blount said they also explain their mission to residents. He said they are better than an alternative.
“If this area was zoned as industrial, Amazon or some big corporate company that really does not care about the community could build and mass a warehouse and we think that constituents would rather see solar panels,” Blount said. “When we’re looking into that we always want to see if we can have a vegetative screening.”
Blount said along with addressing concerns, boosting the community is one of their priorities.
“We always want to also make a difference,” he said. “If we can donate a fire truck or generate additional economic benefits that the local county would have had a budget shortfall, we can make a difference there as well.”
Blount said the project would not have any state incentives for building, and a federal incentive that was adopted in 2022 is in danger of being revoked.
“The Inflation Reduction Act benefits tax incentives for these types of projects, but that’s in flux right now … with the reconciliation bill,” Blount said. “In its current standing, projects have to be [commercial operation dated] by 2028.”
President Donald Trump’s reconciliation bill has passed in the U.S. House and is under review in the Senate. If passed, it would scale back tax incentives for clean energy projects, including solar farms.
If the Dawson Solar project does come to fruition, Blount said it would have positive economic impact to the county. With an investment of over $500 million, he said the local economy will benefit from its construction and ongoing operation, according to their strategic economic research.
“They found that over the project construction, it will create 350 jobs at the local level and 962 jobs during construction for the state and that’s indirect and direct,” Blount said. “Over the course of the 30-year span, we’ll produce $65 million in property taxes.”
The project would also produce about 35 long-term jobs and $6.1 million long-term output for McLean County. It would also produce $36.8 million in local earnings during construction and $2.3 million in local long-term earnings.
McLean County Building and Zoning Director Phil Dick confirmed that in McLean County, there are two other solar farms in operation, two other solar farms are under construction, while 10 projects have permits but are not currently being built.
"They maybe have other things that they need to align before they can get their [construction] permit. We are not sure what they are." Dick said.
The Dawson Solar project will apply for its special use permit this summer.
Dick said the reasons why other projects might be interested in McLean County are the same reasons as why Deriva selected the area.
“I think it’s attractive because there is electrical infrastructure in the country, I think that there’s adequate sun and I think that the county generally is thought to be dependable as far as consistency with their review process,” Dick said.
