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Katie Johnson offered our invocation, quoting four individuals, including Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King, whose statements reflect the mantra of Rotary. Zack Stach reminded us of the need for volunteers at United Way this coming Tuesday morning, Aprilf 25th, and again on April 28th to deliver the stuffed bags to the schools. Highway clean-up is coming in May as is helping to clean-up the river front. Posters to recruit new members, courtesy of Mark Bring and Otter Tail Power, were available in two different sizes for distribution. Anthony Nordan led off our brags and fines, contributing for missing a few meetings and to report that Summer Hammond bamboozled him at a Perham Rotary meeting. Hal Leland, attending virtually, paid for missing last week's meeting and shared the disturbing news that his wife Donna fell and fractured her lower spine. Keith Olson told us he had been in Montana fishing the prior week, helped to deliver 135 meals as a volunteer for Salvation Army out there and will be in Rome in the near future. Ken Harty finished off the bragging reporting on being in Cancun last week and that when he came home all the snow was gone, to which Keith asked, "Why didn't you leave in January?" Keith Olson introduced Randy Synstelien from Otter Tail Power Co. to give us an update on the company's Hoot Lake Solar plant. Compared to when Randy last spoke to us on February 9, 2022, on the day of this presentation he said there were about 60 employees on site for the contractor installing solar panels. The chosen site saved time and money by being able to use the existing interconnect system that serviced the coal plant. Otter Tail projects there will be two to three part-time jobs necessary to staff the site, its first utility scale solar project. Right now, the Company's generating capacity includes 300 megawatts of coal-generated electricity, 300 megawatts through natural gas, 400 megawatts from wind, 70 megawatts in oil-fired peaking plants, with 50 megawatts added through the solar farm. Minnesota established a goal for power companies it regulates to produce 1½% of its electricity from solar by 2020 and until now OTP has met that requirement by purchasing renewable attributes from other solar projects. Ultimately, the solar farm will produce about 3% of the company's electrical demand in Minnesota, about the equivalent of servicing 9000 homes. The project is broken into 6 different areas and it will have 16 inverters that serve to both convert the electrical current from dc to ac and to increase the voltage to the level needed to be placed on the grid. Right now, three of the converters are activated to produce test energy; they expect the full system will go commercial this summer. All roads, fencing and landscaping (er 600 evergreens and 1500 shrubs have been planted on the land) has been completed and 17,000 posts were pounded into the ground last year. The posts range in length between 25 and 33 feet, of which only four to five feet of each is above ground. No cement was used to place the posts and, at the peak of their installation, there were four post driving machines on site. From the top edge of one panel to the bottom of the next there is a 14-foot gap, big enough to drive through with a pickup. The bottom panel will be a minimum of two feet off the ground and the top will be about ten feet above ground. All of the solar panels, or modules, are on sight as of now, which took about 175 truckloads of parts and racking materials. Even on a cloudy day the modules produce at about 45-50% of their capacity; Randy said they will be generating electricity any day you can see a shadow. The fencing is intended to keep large critters out but has a three-inch gap at the base to permit small animals to go in and out. Randy said the total cost of the project will be $61 million and that Minnesota customers will see an adder for renewable energy on their statements, which will be a small portion of their overall bills. The overall life of the project is expected at 35 years. Otter Tail's current resource plan calls for additional solar and wind generation to be added in the next five years. |
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