The Project

Locomotive Solar is a proposed utility-scale solar project being developed by Ranger Power in partnership with private landowners east of Greentown in Howard County, Indiana.

Ranger Power seeks to develop a project that:

• Will be an asset to the community and will bring benefits to adjacent properties;

• Will be safe in its design, construction, operation and eventual decommissioning;

• Will be respectful of residential properties in the area, as well as agricultural;

• Reintroduces native grasses and pollinators in a prairie-like setting to land currently under Ag production;

• Will be valued by farmers and agricultural landowners as an attractive opportunity, consistent with their stewardship of their land, to diversify and strengthen their income, businesses and families;

• Responds to statewide business and utility demand for clean energy at an attractive price; and,

• As a side benefit, can help create foundational infrastructure to position Howard County to compete and win in the clean energy marketplace.

Rows of photovoltaic panels, surrounded by prairie grasses and pollinators compatible with grazing and beekeeping, would be located on the open and sunny portions of the land of private landowners who have chosen to participate in the project. Rows would be separated by 16-20 feet.

Panels are advanced models of those that have been used for years on houses and commercial buildings and would be arranged on racks that rotate to track the sun. The facility will be designed to prevent glare and to minimize noise. Panels would be located 300 feet or more from neighboring houses and other significant structures, and at least 100 feet from residential property lines. The electricity generated would be transmitted to customers using the existing Greentown electric transmission substation.

Panels will avoid environmental features such as natural forested areas, wetlands and other sensitive areas. They will be set back from roads as well as houses.

Locomotive Solar is designed to be light on the land, with posts that support the racks of panels driven directly into the ground without separate foundations. Stands of trees would remain and significant grading is minimized. During operation, the prairie and pollinator environment will deliver benefits similar to the Conservation Reserve Program. When it reaches the end of its useful life, which is estimated to be 30-35 years, the equipment will be removed and the land restored such that the owner can again use it for agriculture, if desired.

Buried wires connecting the rows of panels will lead first to inverters that convert direct current to alternating current and then from inverters to a step-up transformer, where the voltage will be increased to transmission system levels. From there, the power will be fed via overhead lines into the adjacent Greentown substation.

panel rows will be generously spaced

To minimize shadows on adjacent rows and to allow for periodic maintenance, the centers of rows will be spaced about 16-20 feet apart, leaving wide gaps between, even when panels are flat at midday. With this spacing, solar panels and equipment will cover only about 30 percent of the project site.

Panels will be about as tall as full-grown corn

Panels will be tallest at sunrise and sunset, when they will be turned toward the sun. Panel rotation will stop at 30 degrees from vertical to prevent panels from facing houses of neighbors. When the sun rises higher than 30 degrees above the horizon in the morning, the panels will start to track the sun across the sky, rotating to flat at midday and then returning to their tallest profile as sunset approaches.

Land Use

Indiana has a proud history of using farmland to harvest the sun for energy and is one of the nation’s leading producers of ethanol, responsible for about 7% of the nation’s total production. With transportation consuming about a fifth of all energy in the state, biofuels make an important contribution in Indiana, providing about 5% of the state’s total transportation fuel. Additional local ethanol production not used in Indiana supplies other states.* Statewide, about 5,400,000 acres of corn is grown and 40% of the crop is used for ethanol production. With a total of about 14.8 million acres farmed, about 15% of the state’s farmland is utilized to harvest the sun for energy production using ethanol.**

Locomotive Solar is expected to use up to 1,700 acres or less than 1.25% of Howard County farmland. The preliminary project area is shown in the downloadable map at right. (If, in addition, another similarly sized project were built in the county, the two together would use less than 2.5% of the farmland in Howard County.)***

On a statewide basis, if the use of solar energy were to grow to produce half of the state’s electricity, the state’s total farmland used to harvest the sun for energy production would increase from about 15% to 16%. (For reference, in 2019, solar produced less than 0.5% of the electric energy in Indiana.)****

Importantly, Locomotive Solar land leases and the Howard County Solar Ordinance both require that solar equipment be removed and land restored so that it can again be used for agriculture when no longer in use for solar energy production. Meanwhile, the prairie environment among and around solar panels, with its deep-rooted grasses and pollinators, will help enrich the land used for Locomotive Solar so that it will be well suited for agricultural use following decommissioning.

*See Indiana Office of Energy Development, https://www.in.gov/oed/about-oed/newsroom/fact-sheets/fuel-facts-biofuel/.
**See Indiana Ethanol Producers Association, https://inethanol.com/ and National Agricultural Statistics Service, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_Overview/stateOverview.php?state=INDIANA.
***See National Agricultural Statistics Service, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/Indiana/index.php.
****See the EPA’s Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database, https://www.epa.gov/egrid.

 MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

The Howard County Solar Ordinance specifies minimum requirements for the project, which Locomotive Solar will meet or exceed:

• Solar arrays will be set back from neighboring residences and other substantial structures by at least 300 feet

• Solar arrays will be set back from the property line of any non-participating landowner by at least 100 feet (unless waived by the owner)

• Views will be screened or buffered from adjacent residential dwellings; screening will be consistent with the Howard County standards typically applied for other and uses requiring screening

• Fencing around panel areas will be consistent with a rural setting (fencing around panel areas will not be barbed wire or chain-link)

• Solar arrays will be set back from road right-of-way of State highways and County and State Aid Highways by at least 50 feet, and by at least 40 feet for all other roads

• Locomotive Solar equipment will not exceed 20 feet in height

• Ground around and under solar panels and in project site buffer areas will be planted, established, and maintained for the life of the solar project in perennial vegetated ground cover

• Field insecticide use will be used only for spot control of noxious weeds

• First responder training will be provided, along with detailed descriptions of materials used in solar panel manufacturing (safety data sheets)

• Upon request of any neighbor within on half-mile of the project, Locomotive Solar will have a water well test conducted at the start of the project and within 30 days of completion

• Locomotive Solar will seek neighbor agreements with those affected by the project

• Locomotive Solar will establish and maintain a decommissioning fund during operation

• Locomotive Solar will remove all solar energy system structures and equipment, dispose of all solid and hazardous waste in accordance with local, state, and federal disposal regulations, and stabilize or revegetate the site to minimize erosion

Community & Economic Benefits

• Leased land payments will provide income diversification for local farmers while protecting and preserving agricultural land for future generations.

• The project will be a significant source of new discretionary local tax revenue to support needed services such as schools, roads, and emergency services, as directed by Howard County leadership.

• Jobs created during construction will bring increased economic activity to the community; once operational, the project will directly employ a small operational staff.