The Knox County Board on Wednesday night approved of several zoning-related items related to the Blackberry Solar Farm to the south of Galesburg. The proposed 50-megawatt solar project is a $70M investment with an expected $5M in property taxes over 35 years. Ken Springer with the Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development spoke in favor of the utility-scale solar farm at the meeting. "More than just a means to harvest energy, renewable projects like Blackberry Solar represent another revenue source for rural landowners. These projects allow landowners to generate stable, predictable, long-term revenue from land leases that is irrespective of weather patterns, drought, or floods. And with solar energy, these systems do very little damage to the land. At the end of its useful life, the solar systems can be removed and the land is returned to agricultural production." He also said the project intended to be good neighbors to the residential properties in the area. &q
A $70 million, utility-scale solar project that would use 380 acres of land and bring millions of dollars in property tax revenue over the life of the project could be coming to Galesburg and Knox County.