By Hope Kirwin, Wisconsin Public Radio

A major utility in western Wisconsin has announced plans for a new solar farm in Jefferson County. Dairyland Power Cooperative plans to purchase 149 megawatts of solar energy from the Badger State Solar project. That’s almost six times Dairyland’s current solar investment and would more than double the state’s solar production, The new partnership would create one of the largest solar farms in Wisconsin. The solar farm would be built by development company Ranger Power on private land in the towns of Jefferson and Oakland. Read more here.

Ranger Power Photo

Related

• Solar power project planned for Jefferson County that will generate enough electricity for about 20,000 homes, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Dairyland Power Cooperative, based in La Crosse, provides wholesale electricity to 24 rural electric cooperatives and 17 municipal utilities in four states.
• Ranger Power representative Adam Cohen spoke about a 240-MW solar project in
  Nebraska during his presentation at the 2018 Nebraska Wind & Solar Conference, Utility-Scale Solar Overview.

MORE NEWS FROM STATES

Big cheese gets big solar+storage proposal, PV Magazine
Invenergy has proposed a solar project up to 200 MWac / 300 MWdc in capacity with a 50 MW / 200 MWh battery in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.

 

• News Release: Juhl Energy pairs wind and solar power in hybrid project, Electric Light & Power
  A trailblazing wind-solar hybrid project in western Minnesota could be a preview of what’s to come as renewable developers look for new ways to bolster projects.
• Rochester Has Head Start on Minnesota Governor’s Clean Energy Plan, Next City
  Michael Wojcik, a member of both the city’s Energy Commission and the RPU board credits Rochester’s clean energy trailblazing to two things: the community’s willingness to embrace science and their demand that actionable plans be put in place.
• Owner of the Year MidAmerican’s Answer to Clean Energy is Blowin’ in the Wind, Engineering News-Record. With a strong investment in wind energy in place after more than a decade of
  effort and billions spent, MidAmerican began to branch out into other areas. In mid-2018, it
  began work on its first utility-scale battery energy storage system.
• California sets a new solar output record – and it isn’t even spring yet (w/ charts), PV Magazine
  California continues to break new ground in terms of integrating higher levels of solar, and sometimes the records come when you least expect them.
• Monopolies in Michigan fear solar, deliver some of nation’s most expensive electricity, PV Magazine. An analysis by Michigan Technological University shows how Michigan utilities use political influence to push back against distributed solar generation, leading to some of the nation’s highest electricity rates in the Upper Peninsula.
• N.C. bill allows charging stations to resell electricity, American Public Power Association

NATIONAL NEWS

State of the states: 4 reasons that red plus blue makes green economics, Utility Dive Contributor Malcolm D. Woolf, managing director of MW Energy Advisors and former chair of the National Association of State Energy Officials. Washington, D.C. is abuzz with the Green New Deal, but my bet is that the most pivotal energy legislation enacted this year comes from red and blue state houses across the nation.

• Can 100 Percent Renewable Energy Cope With a Polar Vortex?, Sierra Magazine
  Iceland has an electric power sector that is 100 percent renewable, and it has more extreme cold than the United States. If they have solved the problem, we can too. – Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and the guy who created science-based, 100 percent clean energy roadmaps for the world.
•  US Corporations Driving Up Demand for Renewable Energy, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Below is a partial roundup of just a few notable recent purchases and commitments by US companies. Many of these companies have made public commitments to powering their operations with 100% renewable energy; so many, in fact, that there’s a new term for them: RE100 Companies.
• Previously Posted: How do corporate wind deals benefit local communities?, Into the Wind, AWEA Blog

GLOBAL NEWS

Rise of bifacial lifts profits for the world’s tracker companies, PV Magazine

Soltec Image: Single-axis tracker