St. CHARLES, Minn. – A divide between sustaining conventional farms and growing renewable power manufacturing exists in rural southern Minnesota.
For a fifth-generation farm household, cashing in on photo voltaic power is a no brainer. Ralph and Mena Kaehler based Novel Energy Solutions in 2012. The CEO of Novel Energy Solutions is their son, Cliff Kaehler.
This yr marks the 143rd yr of the Kaehler household farm, situated in St. Charles, Minnesota, the place a photo voltaic array sits on the entrance to the operation.
The farm the place Cliff Kaehler returned in 2012 after engaged on the East Coast for the renewable power division of Credit Suisse, the Export-Import Bank and the American Council on Renewable Energy. Ralph Kaehler remembers his son’s pleasure for photo voltaic power when he obtained house.
“He mentioned it will change our rural communities, it will usher in somewhat extra revenue and we may do the correct factor for the long run,” Ralph Kaehler mentioned of his son. “We can see and do what’s proper. It’s not an both.”
Novel Energy Solutions is now the most important neighborhood photo voltaic developer in Minnesota. The firm noticed 163% development from 2019-23, based on Inc.’s annual rankings. Magazine of the quickest rising personal corporations within the US
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Minnesota ranks thirteenth for complete put in solar energy within the US, with 2,796 complete put in photo voltaic. That’s sufficient photo voltaic to energy 387,054 properties.
On May 13 on the household farm, Ralph Kaehler put to mattress rumors of breakable photo voltaic panels, by poking one with the palm of his hand. And when his grandchildren arrived, they used the array as a jungle gymnasium and slide (which he did not advocate).
Noah Fish / Agweek
“For me, stepping into renewable power is simply an extension of our rural upbringing and the best way we have been raised — it is a new trade,” Kaehler mentioned. “It’s like an previous farmer instructed me after I was promoting feed, ‘Everything is for progress; this can be a change we do not need.'”
What angered Kaehler was listening to about photo voltaic changing the nation’s productive land.
“That’s the most important misnomer on this planet,” he mentioned.
But it is a sentiment shared by many in southeast Minnesota.
Solar versus major farm
Minnesota has about 25.5 million acres of farmland, about 17.3 million acres of that are thought-about prime, based on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Solar farms are sometimes constructed on prime farmland, which is the case in southeastern Minnesota.
Last yr, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission permitted a web site allow for the $256 million Byron Solar Project that can cowl greater than 1,500 acres in Canisteo Township in Dodge County.
About 90% of Dodge County’s manufacturing farmland is assessed as prime farmland, based on a Minnesota Department of Agriculture spokeswoman. The Canisteo Township mission will cowl about 1,080 acres of prime farmland, somewhat greater than two-thirds of the realm.
During a public listening to previous to approval, commentators expressed concern concerning the impression on farmers and the native economic system of taking prime market land.
Neil Witzel, Canisteo Township supervisor, instructed the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission that the mission would take “very productive farmland” from the township.
“There’s a huge impact on individuals having the ability to lease land,” Witzel mentioned. “They must take their tractors and tools farther from the farm.”
Dan Glessing, Minnesota Farm Bureau President, says that with a purpose to create extra alternatives for younger and new farmers, it’s essential to discover a steadiness between power provide – particularly the photo voltaic farm – and productive farm.
Traci Westcott / Post Bulletin
“Some of the photo voltaic arrays which can be occurring the farm are somewhat worrisome,” Glessing mentioned final fall. “We’re all about personal property rights, however how can we make certain the land continues to be accessible for future generations to farm and ranch?”
Minnesota Farm Bureau members aren’t the one ones skeptical of photo voltaic land acquisition.
Last yr, US Senator Amy Klobuchar visited the Dodge County Farmers Union assembly to ask for feedback on the farm invoice, however as an alternative heard about varied photo voltaic initiatives and their impression on the area.
“If you are taking 1,500 acres out of manufacturing and 10 acres right here, and 20 acres there – that manufacturing impacts all the opposite entities which can be open to serving to on the ag facet, just like the fertilizer vegetation and the elevators and truck drivers,” mentioned Rodney Peterson, president of the Dodge County Farmers Union. “It’s a trickle-down sort of factor.”
Solar and wind operations started changing productive farmland a few decade in the past in Dodge County, Peterson mentioned. Minnesota electrical utilities are mandated to be 100% carbon-free by 2040, due to clean-energy laws handed by the state Legislature final yr.
“They’ve been sluggish to come back to Dodge County, particularly after they handed the payments to assist cowl the price of placing them in,” Peterson mentioned. “Nobody’s delivering something there, and no person’s placing something within the floor, so it is dormant, and the power is simply going by way of some energy strains, and we’re not seeing a lot manufacturing in any respect.” what is the matter.”
Solar carries much less threat than rising conventional crops on a farm, mentioned Ralph Kaehler, who calls photo voltaic a “25-year conservation mission.”
“It supplies extra revenue than corn and soybeans, and the landowners make 4 to 5 occasions the cash, with no threat and a long-term contract,” he mentioned. “Why would not you assist that for any younger farmer, or anybody attempting to have a generational change on their land like we’re doing on our farm?”
Kaehler mentioned it will take as much as 10 hectares of land to construct a megawatt array.
“We’re usually seven to 10 acres for a megawatt of photo voltaic, and also you get about $1,000 {dollars} a yr for that, for a 25-year guarantee,” he mentioned. “With that, a secure off taker to the utility firm – they are not going away.”
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department, the development of the photo voltaic farm includes clearing and grading giant areas of land, which might result in “vital erosion and huge runoff of sediment into waterways if managed of storm water on the location will not be sufficient.”
Kaehler in contrast the photo voltaic development finished by Novel Energy Solutions to the cultivation of a traditional crop farm.
Noah Fish / Agweek
“(Solar) will not be in any manner worse than standard farming and even strip-till farming. When you get the flawed rain on the flawed time within the flawed land, it really works,” he mentioned. “But on flat land, when our seedings are established, we’ve not moved the land for 25 years. You hardly ever see a hill of washed grass.”
The “worry of one thing new” is what scares individuals away from photo voltaic, Kaehler mentioned, and the truth that photo voltaic builders pays greater than the typical farmer to lease land. Then you will note photo voltaic panels within the fields the place persons are used to seeing combines and farms.
“The new ones have individuals going ‘I’m all for renewable power, however I do not need to be within the discipline throughout from my place,’ I need to eat a pig, however I do not need a barn the place I reside. We’ve heard all that crap earlier than,” Kaehler mentioned.
For Kaehler and his household, photo voltaic is a strategy to maintain the household farm going and cross it on to the following era.
“My era, after we graduated from highschool and faculty, I by no means frightened about the way forward for the world – I used to be going out to make a profession,” Kaehler mentioned. “Ask any 20-year-old as we speak, in the event that they’re frightened about their future, each one among them will inform you they’re scared to demise.”
“My grandchildren, that is what I constructed it, that is what I did for them, that is why they’re the long run and in case you do not take into consideration the long run, or do not take into consideration the individuals who comply with you, then struggle photo voltaic, and lift your head,” he mentioned.
MINNESOTA: Ranked thirteenth for complete put in solar energy within the US
Total photo voltaic put in (MW): 2,796.09
Adequate solar energy set up: 387,054 homes
Solar corporations working as we speak: 168
NORTH DAKOTA: It ranks final in complete put in solar energy within the US
Total photo voltaic put in (MW): 1.92
Adequate solar energy set up: 190 homes
Solar corporations working as we speak: 8
SOUTH DAKOTA: It ranks forty seventh in complete put in solar energy within the US
Total photo voltaic put in (MW): 101.86
Adequate solar energy set up: 11,998 homes
Solar corporations working as we speak: 14
Iowa: Ranks thirty fifth in complete put in solar energy within the US
Total photo voltaic put in (MW): 601.13
Enough solar energy put in: 76,085 homes
Solar corporations working as we speak: 81
WISCONSIN: Ranks 18th in complete put in solar energy within the US
Total photo voltaic put in (MW): 2,204.12
Adequate solar energy set up: 369,766
Solar corporations working as we speak: 181
(Statistics based on the Solar Energy Industries Association.)
