Porter Township farmer Wayne Herlitz admitted he has reservations about NextEra Energy Resources’ plans for Malden Solar and its solar panels on leased farmland along Smoke Road.
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During a community open house hosted by NextEra on Wednesday at the Porter County Expo Center, Herlitz said he lives in Porter Township but he owns land that abuts property where the solar panels will be located.
“It’s actually the Kankakee Marsh area. It’s the best farmland around. I’m curious why they picked that area,” he said, adding he understands it’s because that’s where farmers signed on for the lease agreements.
He drove down Indiana 10 in Jasper County, which also has a NextEra project called Dunns Bridge, with a first phase comparable to what’s proposed in Porter County, to see what the panels look like.
“It’s an eyesore. I figure I would rather have this than windmills,” he said. “It’s a shame to take prime farmland and plant it with glass panels.”
Herlitz came to the meeting to learn more about the project, including where a substation might go.
“Our property has had so many things want to go through it,” he said, adding those proposals included a landfill, the Illiana Toll Road and a high-speed freight rail line. “It must be worth millions. Everyone wants it.”
Herlitz was one of more than 60 people who stopped by the open house, set up with stations staffed by NextEra representatives who answered questions and provided information. The visitors varied, and included representatives for workforce training, local officials, an advocate from a renewable energy organization, an environmentalist and farmers who’ve leased their land to NextEra.
NextEra Energy is proposing a $250 million investment in Porter County through its Malden Solar project, with an estimated $30 million coming back to the county over the life of the project, an estimated 35 years.
The project, still in its preliminary stages, has yet to receive approval from the county, though NextEra is expected to ask for a tax abatement or other incentives for bringing the project here.
NextEra, on its company website, touts itself as “the world leader in electricity generated from wind and solar,” with $135 billion in total assets.
Around nine farmers have signed on so far, with another few possibly agreeing to lease their land.
“It’s right there along Smoke Road. That’s the meridian line,” Matt Johnson, developer of the project for NextEra Energy, has said, adding 80% to 90% of the land has been secured through lease agreements at about 1,800 acres, with the possibility of an additional 160 to 800 acres.
Malden Solar’s build out will take 12 to 18 months and create 250 construction jobs, Johnson has said, adding that depending on the permitting process and timelines, Malden Solar could begin operation at the end of 2024 but that could change.
The Malden Solar project, a NextEra Energy official has said, is within a few months of going to the permit stage with Porter County, depending on landowners, and environmental surveys are already underway.
Mark and Debbie Good are some of those landowners. The couple lives in Morgan Township and farms corn and soybeans. Less than 10% of their land would be leased to host solar panels.
“The reason we signed up is basically, the property is owned by myself and my three siblings and they’re all retired, and they’re going to get more income than from farming,” Mark Good said.
NextEra Energy representatives have declined to say how much the lease agreements yield financially for farmers, but Stephen Eastridge, executive director of the Jasper County Economic Development organization, has said the Indiana legislature sets the value of agricultural property at $1,250 per acre and it’s about $13,000 once it’s put in solar use.
The decision to lease land to NextEra, Mark Good said, is “strictly financial.”
NextEra Energy approached the Goods about leasing their land, they said, and after doing her own research to make sure the company was reputable, Debbie Good had representatives from the company speak to high school students for a Rotary program.
“We also recognize with the coal plants going down, where is our energy going to come from? And I’m not a big proponent of wind (power),” she said.
Gary Brown, president of the Porter County chapter of the Izaak Walton League, said he was more concerned with the impact of the Dunns Bridge project once it expands into Starke County, where it could jeopardize the landing spots of migrating sandhill cranes.
“Where are they going to go, unless you’re willing to provide habitat for them?” he asked Layna Thrush, a representative for NextEra’s environmental services.
NextEra sets aside $75,000 for each of its project sites for environmental stewardship, she said, and that could include vegetation for the sandhill cranes.
Renewable energy offers “tremendous economic development projects” for the communities that host them, said Jim Finan, deputy director of Hoosiers for Renewables, a privately-funded group that promotes renewable energy from an advocacy and educational standpoint.
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“I just see the value of a renewable energy mix,” he said, adding he came to the open house to clear up any misconceptions about solar energy.
For Andrea Proulx Buinicki, vice president of workforce initiatives with the Center of Workforce Innovation for Northwest Indiana, the event was an opportunity to get more information about workforce development.
“We are interested in supporting training for individuals who want to work in construction in renewable energy,” she said, adding the center partners with Ivy Tech Community College, which has a short-term certification program that helps people prepare for jobs in renewable energy, including solar.
Ryan Pierce of Washington Township came to the open house on two fronts. His dad is a farmer who owns land near where Malden Solar will be installed, and Pierce, an electrician, is working on the Dunns Bridge project in Jasper County.
“It’s just really close to home so I wanted to see what the chances were of it coming here and if it does, I think there’s a really good chance I’ll be working on it,” he said.