Residents of Waverly will be seeing a large solar farm to their east in the coming years.
WLDS has gathered more information on a solar farm being installed in Sangamon County that passed the Sangamon County Board last month.
The 3,250 acre project will encompass the unincorporated township of Lowder in southwestern Sangamon County along the Illinois Route 104 corridor, and will have parcels along the Morgan-Sangamon County Line up to Ackerman Road to the east.
According to the project managers of the Double Black Diamond Solar project, Boston-based solar development company Swift Current Energy, the $535 million project will create nearly 1,000 jobs beginning next year and generate around $2 million in tax revenue per year.
Double Black Diamond will be constructed over a year’s time starting at the end of 2022 with a lifespan of the project set for approximately 35 years. The site is expected to generate 592.8MW of energy, enough to power 85,000 homes.
Molly Berns, executive director of the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission told WICS Newschannel 20 on November 10th that the power produced from the solar farm will be fed back to the MISO electric grid, which stretches from Minnesota to Louisiana.
According to Swift Current Energy’s website, they also have small scale solar and wind farms in Christian, Logan, and Mason counties.