by Jackie Nunnery
LANCASTER—About 30 Lancaster District 1 residents on February 24 met with supervisor Jack Larson during a town hall meeting at Yankee Point Marina to hear updates on key initiatives including solar projects, new schools and countywide broadband.
Solar projects
“It appears that we are becoming an attractive location for solar farms,” Larson said, most likely due to the price and availability of land.
It remains to be seen how much the county can gain financially from the projects since, as Larson pointed out, solar farms under 20 megawatts are not taxed at all and solar farms generating 20 to 150 megawatts still have an 80% tax exemption. It is not until you get into the large solar arrays, above 150 megawatts, that the county would see machinery and tools tax revenue, based on the expense of the solar panels.
“If someone were to come in and build a 500 megawatt farm, it could result in significant tax revenues…[to-view-more]