Landowners
For a dependable source of income, partner with Idemitsu Renewables. Our solar projects require minimal water, allow the land to be re-farmed in the future, or, may allow the land to be farmed at the same time. For more information, please contact us.
We Are A Great Neighbor
Solar projects create local jobs, increase local tax revenues; all benefiting the welfare of the local community. Projects may also provide grassland habitation, critical pollinator habitats, and help stabilize the soil. For more information, please contact us.
How Does A Solar Project Get Built?
A STEP-BY-STEP BRIEF
1. Finding and Acquiring a Project Site:
For the acquisition of a quality site for a solar project you search by state, county, town, and parcel to evaluate and chose a location based on its competitive attributes. Then negotiations are held with the land owners until an agreement to purchase or lease acres of land is reached.
2. Initial Design:
Many of the development steps that follow the acquisition of a site require some level of preliminary project design to define the boundaries, impact, costs, energy production, and other factors of a planned project. For this step experienced engineers review the project site and local attributes to define what a project will look like, how to minimize impact to the project landscape, and how it will perform.
3. Interconnection Application:
Once a site control has occurred, it is time to start the process that will allow the project to connect to the electrical grid. The process is defined by the local utility and typically requires the project to be studied to ensure it will operate safely in concert with the rest of the grid. This process takes months to years and culminates in the execution of an interconnection agreement.
4. Permitting:
A very important process in the development of a project is its permitting. This is the process undertaken to obtain local, state, and governmental permits to construct and operate the project. The process typically requires environmental surveys and studies to be conducted based on the planned design of the project. Depending on the location the project permitting process can take 3-6 months to several years and cost several thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
5. Community Engagement:
Throughout the entire permitting and development process, the project developer engages with community stakeholders to keep them informed on the timeline, design, and economic/sustainability benefits of the project.
6. Procurement:
Typically 6 – 12 months before the start of construction it is time to begin procuring the equipment and services that will be used to construct and operate the project. The equipment and services procured in this key step need to be the highest quality at the best value because the facility will depend on them for 35+ years during its operational life time.
7. Financing:
Energy projects cost a significant amount of money, but they also create significant revenue over their lifetimes through the generation and sale of energy. To bridge the need for capital upfront with the long term benefits of the project, projects are typically financed for a term of 20+ years with institutional and bank financing partners. Solar projects have a consistent annual revenue stream due to the ability to forecast solar generation based on historical weather data.
8. Construction:
Once construction starts, many difficult development steps have been completed but the project is not out of the woods yet. The projects EPC (Engineering Procurement and Construction) contractor will coordinate deliveries of equipment with the hundreds of onsite construction workers to prepare the land, dig trenches for wiring, pour foundations for equipment, and install hundreds of individual components before “flipping the switch” to get everything working correctly and producing energy. Construction can take 6 -12 months and provides an important benefit to the local communities where the hundreds of workers are typical sourced from.
9. Operations:
After the project is generating energy and delivering it to the local grid the life of the project has only just begun. 35+ years of operation lie ahead where the project owner will be monitoring the project to see how it is performing, if it needs corrective maintenance, how the weather is affecting performance, and even simple day to day activities we are all familiar with such as paying rent for the project land and vegetation management. A typical project will generate millions of kilowatt hours of energy in its lifetime, using only sunshine as its fuel.