CCU, City Proceed With Agreement To Purchase Solar Power For Development
by Janice Penix
Members of the Clarksville Connected Utilities Commission and the Clarksville City Council voted during special meetings on Tuesday, April 9, to proceed with the purchase of solar power as part of a substantial economic development project by Suncloud Holdings.
The CCU Commission approved a resolution authorizing a contract with Suncloud to be signed, pending members’ approval of the final contract terms. Following that action, the Council approved an ordinance authorizing the utility to execute a 30-year contract for the purchase of solar power.
The Suncloud development project includes four phases, designed to assist Clarksville in obtaining energy independence, attracting new businesses, and bringing high-paying jobs by investing more than $2 billion in new energy infrastructure, biomass generation, data centers and greenhouses.
The first phase involves the construction of a solar power plant on city-owned property which will be leased to the developer at a nominal fee. According to the key terms of the power purchase agreement as presented to the CCU Commission and City Council by Jason Carter, utility attorney, the solar plant will have a generation output of 13-26 megawatts of direct current which the city will purchase at a cost of $0.0499 per kilowatt hour. The price of the power per kilowatt hour will escalate at a rate of 2.5 percent annually, according to the contract.
At the special meeting Tuesday, CCU Commissioners expressed some concerns about changes in the wording of the proposed contract and the initial presentation by Suncloud. Among the concerns was wording regarding the responsibility of CCU for providing interconnection to the solar plant which would likely represent significant costs to the utility.
“When Suncloud was here, they said there would be no cost to us, that they would absorb the cost,” Commissioner Freeman Wish said. “This (contract) doesn’t sound like that. I’d like to see us protect ourselves as much as possible. In that meeting, we were told they were going to absorb all that cost…
To read the full story see the April 17 issue of The Graphic, found online and in businesses throughout Johnson County.
