ABOVE: Danville Planning and Zoning Commission members Aaron Troglia, Pete Goodwin, Michael Hall, and Troy Savalick
It’s one step down and one to go for the City of Danville’s plan to rent space at the old H & L city landfill at Highland Boulevard and Greenwood Cemetery Road. The plan calls for TotalEnergies to build a large-scale ground solar energy system on top of a long ago capped city landfill, using about 32 of 56 available acres. As Danville Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk stated after Thursday (April 4th) evening’s approval by the Danville Planning and Zoning Commission, the fact that TotalEnergies has done this with an old Urbana landfill caught the city’s attention.
AUDIO: That was one of the reasons that the City of Danville selected this company. We went through about a year of vetting for solar companies. Taking experience from other communities and their references really helped us make this decision.
Danville Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk speaks during Thursday evening Danville Planning & Zoning Commission meeting.
TotalEnergies stated while online at the commission meeting that they envision a facility producing about 19.5 million kilowatt hours of energy per year, enough to power 2,700 homes. In addition, the city would be receiving leasing revenue, and residents living nearby would be given first dibs on a subscription plan taking advantage of the extra power being placed onto Ameren’s power grid. As Cronk explained, that means chances for lower power bills.
AUDIO: It’s on City of Danville owned land. So, it’ll be having the actual resident benefits to take a little money off their power bills. We’re not sure how much at this point and time. So once we get all those numbers in, we’ll have a good idea of what that subscription rate is going to look like.
The plan calls for construction on this solar energy system at the old city landfill to begin in 2025, and for it to start producing energy in 2026. The next step for the plan is to have it come before the Danville City Council, at their April 16th meeting.
