Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
QCS Managing Editor
The industrial revenue bonds that will give Infigen, which operates the Caprock Wind Farm, an incentive to add a solar power generating plant to its wind generation complex will be shared between Quay County government and San Jon Schools.
The Quay County Commission Monday gave preliminary approval to an ordinance that would allow the county to issue industrial revenue bonds to encourage construction of a solar power generating plant near San Jon.
The San Jon Muncipal School board also approved a resolution Monday to issue industrial revenue bonds, according to Colin Taylor, superintendent. The county passed a similar resolution at its Nov. 24 meeting.
Industrial revenue bonds are an economic development incentive that gives a company exemption from property taxes for the term of the bond. Infigen will use this incentive to build its solar photovoltaic generating plant next to its Caprock Wind Farm on a Caprock ridge about 10 miles south of San Jon, according to Richard Primrose, Quay County manager. The term of the bonds can be up to 30 years, according to state information on industrial revenue bonds.
The solar panels will generate up to 55 megawatts of electricity at any given time, which will be sold to electrical utilities and wholesale power transmission businesses, according to Infigen’s David Savage, an Infogen senior business development specialist. A megawatt is enough power to energize up to 1,000 households at any given time. The Caprock WindFarm, he said, currently can generate up to 80 megawatts. Construction on the solar power plant is likely to begin in 2016, Savage said.
County and school officials have not yet decided on how the bonds will be split. Both hope to benefit from “payments in lieu of taxes” that will be negotiated as part of bond agreements, county and school officials said. These payments should cost Infigen less than the property taxes would.
The bonds are designed not to cost the county or the school system any money, according to literature on the bonds. Infigen will be responsible for selling the bonds and collecting the proceeds. The bonds, however, are issued in the name of the county and school system, so they make the company’s project, in effect, a non-taxable local government project, thus exempting it from property taxes. At the end of the bond period, the property is deeded back to the company
