Following a nearly 10-hour meeting Saturday, Douglas County commissioners voted to approve a permit for the Kansas Sky Energy Center, a massive solar farm to be built north of Lawrence. The meeting drew dozens of public commenters. Commissioners planned the special Saturday meeting knowing that there would be numerous members of the public wishing to speak on the topic. A unanimous (3-0) vote was required to approve the project because planning commissioners had tied in their vote and a protest petition had been filed against the project. The 159-megawatt solar farm will be built, owned and operated by Evergy with designs provided by Savion LLC, a division of Royal Dutch Shell based out of Kansas City. The commission will consider additional studies and plans related to the project as it gets further along. Plans call for the solar farm to be located on parcels that constitute 1,105 acres north of Lawrence, west of the airport and south of Midland Junction. The site area will include about 604 acres, and if all the solar panels were laid edge to edge, they’d cover about 218 acres. All but 6 acres will remain vegetated, according to the agenda materials.
Source: The Lawrence Times
