Wisconsin's Beaver Dam Solar Project a win all the way around

Alliant Energy has started operation of its 50 MW Beaver Dam Solar Project in Wisconsin, which is expected to deliver long-term benefits to farmers, customers and communities.

By Diane Mettler

Midwest utility Alliant Energy has been busy of late, finishing 11 of 12 solar projects in the state of Wisconsin.

They recently put the finishing touches on the BeaverDam Solar Project in Dodge County, Wisconsin, a 50-megawatt (MW) solar array that spans 350 acres. With its nearly 120,000 solar panels, the Beaver Dam project can produce enough energy to power approximately 13,000 homes annually. 

The Beaver Dam Solar Project is just one of 12 utility-scale solar projects being constructed throughout the southern part of Wisconsin and is part of Alliant Energy’s Clean Energy Blueprint, a strategic plan to cost-effectively accelerate renewable energy development and reduce carbon emissions. These projects combined will produce nearly 1,100 MW of energy.

Early on, Alliant Energy worked with regulators, marketers, and forecasters to decide the best way to meet their customers’ demands. Economic modeling demonstrated that the right investment was to move into the solar arena.

“What filtered to the top was based on the best results for our customers and our investment dollars,” says Tim Kreft, Senior Manager of Strategic Projects. “We put in two of what we call tranches of projects out to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin—six projects in 2019, and then another set of projects in 2020. The first tranche was around 615 megawatts and the second was 414 megawatts. It just made sense for our customers to put these investments out and replace the older, less efficient fossil fuel units.”

The Beaver Dam project got started just outside the city of Beaver Dam in Dodge County in 2022. It was designed to be a zero-fuel-cost energy generation facility using the most up-to-date solar technology to deliver safe, reliable, cost-effective energy to customers. 

Aside from generating electricity for Alliant Energy customers, the Beaver Dam Solar Project will also deliver long-term benefits to the local community and its residents. The project will generate an estimated $6 million in shared revenue for the county and local communities over the next 30 years.

During construction, Alliant Energy employed over 120 carpenters, electricians, operating engineers and laborers, 80 percent locally sourced, adding to the benefit to
the community.

“We absolutely try to use local constructors,” says Kreft. “We encourage the local subcontractors, and we are very strong in our support of local unions to fill out the workforce.”

The biggest challenge on solar sites in Wisconsin is the soil. The state is heavily glaciated, so either projects are close to the bedrock or have lots of cobble or glacial till cobble type.

“When you pound the piles into the ground, you just don't know what you're going to hit,” says Kreft. “You can go out and do geotech and you can go out and do site investigations, but until you're punching 20,000 holes into the ground for the piles that you need to hold the foundations, it's hard to know exactly what you're going to find and that’s the biggest unknown on the projects.

“Once the piles are in, you can kind of get a pretty good idea of what your production is going to be for putting up racking and putting up piles and putting up cabling.”

Ironically, the warmer winters Wisconsin is experiencing create its own challenges. “The quantity of time that we have frost in the ground is diminishing, which means we have muddy and soft soil more frequently, which actually makes construction more difficult,” says Kreft. “It's a lot more difficult dealing with freeze thaw cycles and mud than it is frozen ground and snow.”

The ground was filled with stones that had to be removed from the site. “There was a lot of work done in that initial grading and land preparation phase which is great for those farmers who lease this land at the end of the project life,” adds Kreft.

“If they choose to put it back into agricultural production, one of the benefits they have is a lot of that rock and debris is moved and the site's been more smoothed out for them.”

Construction, however, went smoothly and was completed with zero recordables and zero lost time accidents. “Everybody went home safe every day, and that's the most important accomplishment for the project,” says Kreft.

Supportive landowners helped make the project happen. “Several agreed to let us lease their land for 30 years at Beaver Dam,” says Kreft, who adds that the Alliant Energy portfolio includes both purchased and leased land.

Alliant Energy recently put the finishing touches on the Beaver Dam Solar Project in Dodge County, Wisconsin, a 50-megawatt solar array that spans 350 acres. With its nearly 120,000 solar panels, the Beaver Dam project can produce enough energy to power approximately 13,000 homes annually.

“In this case, we have one major landowner who provides the majority of the land for Beaver Dam. He was actually growing corn on his land that went to the ethanol plant to be made into ethanol, and he kind of cut out the middleman and now he leases his land directly to make solar power, as opposed to having to go to make ethanol for gas-powered cars. His fields can power electric cars now.”

The farmer will, over the course of the next 30 years, receive an annuity stream of payments. And, if after that time he would like to take back the land to farm it, he’s free to do that.

Other improvements to the land include over 45 acres of newly-planted native pollinator habitat that will enrich the soil, improve surface water quality, and support wildlife habitat diversity, all which benefits participating landowners, farmers, and community residents.

And the project will make payments to the townships and the county in shared revenue in the range of $6 million over the 30 years of the project life.

“And those payments come from the state,” says Tony Palese, Alliant Energy’s spokesperson. “They're calculated based on the project size and capacity. So, we pay utility
taxes and the state doles out those shared revenue payments annually to the communities that host this infrastructure.”

As with all projects, Beaver Dam had its share of challenges from permitting to ground conditions.

“Permitting is a pretty broad area,” says Kreft. “At a macro level, we permitted both tranche one and tranche two with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. We received the authority from the commission to move those projects forward. And then on an individual project-by-project basis, there's a myriad of permits.”

During construction of the Beaver Dam Solar project, Alliant Energy employed over 120 carpenters, electricians, operating engineers and laborers, 80 percent locally sourced, adding to the benefit to the community, and the region.

One of the first and most important, says Kreft, is the GIA or the Generation Interconnection Agreement, which is the company’s license to produce power and place it on the grid. “Then there's all the local permitting that involves stormwater and the pollution prevention plan and small protection plans. And there's local permits for conditional use permits and electrical permits. And if there's a building on the project, then you're dealing with building permits as well.”

Permitting took time, but once completed, things got rolling in a big way. There was a period of time over last winter when all 12 projects were in construction and in different phases. During that time, the company dealt with panel tariffs and the anti-dumping, COVID supply chain issues, and labor issues.

“Those were some trying times,” says Kreft. “Fortunately, I have a really great team of people and contractors that supported the effort. We got all but one completed by the end of 2023, so we are pretty proud of what our team's accomplished here.”

Luckily, Beaver Dam was one of the last projects scheduled in Alliant Energy’s portfolio, so many of the supply chain issues and labor issues had been resolved.

When it came to choosing the hardware for the project, Alliant Energy went to the racking engineers and worked with them to come up with some alternative ways to hold the rack.

“That becomes a bit of a push-pull,” says Kreft. “We need to make sure that we have built a 30-year asset for our customers. And part of the way you do that is to make sure that the piles pass a series of pull tests, lateral and tension. And when you're hitting cobble or you're in softer soil, you need to work with the engineering teams to find out what the best solution is. We worked with the racking engineer of record to optimize the levels at which we needed to do our pull tests to prove that the racking was good.”

In the end, Trina Panels were installed for the most part. They chose Power Electronics for the inverters and Array Technologies or ATI for the racking.

One of the benefits of working on multiple projects at the same time is that one gets to buy in bulk.

“We had a portfolio of nine projects constructed with one constructor, so we bought panels and inverters and racking for all nine of those projects so that we got the biggest order in front of the suppliers so that we got the best prices we could possibly get,” says Kreft.

He adds, “One of the unique things was our financing and how the Inflation Reduction Act created some new opportunities there. We intended to finance a lot of the projects that we had been advancing with tax equity financing. And thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we were able to shift from that tax equity financing to more of a traditional ownership, and save our customers approximately $138 million.”

It's been quite a journey for Kreft and his crew. Dare we say, they have been as busy as beavers.

Q3 2024