WESTON, Ohio — The Juliet Solar Project aims to be a 101-megawatt solar facility on 670 acres of privately-owned land in Weston Township, Milton Township and the Village of Weston throughout Wood County.
The project is expected to pay $890,000 annually into taxes that would go towards Otsego School District, Village of Weston and Weston and Milton townships.
BP — the multinational oil and gas company's LLC — started the purchase of land and land rights back in 2019 for a 101-megawatt solar farm. The purchase, along with applications to the Ohio Power Sitting Board for the Juliet Solar Project, was recently approved.
The Board's Public Information Officer, Matthew Butler, said the project must follow 30 conditions or stipulations for before, during and after construction in order to be compliant with the Ohio Power Sitting Board and Ohio Farm Bureau.
"Filing final engineering drawings ahead of time, maintaining certain construction hours during construction. Then after construction and operation having a resolution process in place so that if folks do have issues with the project going forward, they would have a way to file those concerns and get them addressed," Butler said.
Village of Weston Mayor Jeremy Schroeder said, for the most part, residents have been positive. While the village hasn't taken a stance on the project, Schroeder noted his thoughts.
"When workers are in town, they eat at our establishments and they patronize our businesses. As far as the long-term, the increased revenue to the village, our neighboring townships, and even our school district will have a real impact on our budgets. With the price of everything going up, these projects very well may keep our local municipalities from coming to the taxpayers for AN increase in revenue," Schroeder explained.
But, both he and the board have heard some people in the area aren't thrilled with the project being near them.
"Any potential impacts being made to neighbors to the project, (it's) sort of a change to the rural landscape and potential loss of agricultural land to the project. So, land that would no longer be actively farmed for crops," Butler explained.
As of right now, tentative plans for construction, depending on required permits and other factors, has been set for mid-2022. The start to project operations in turn is slated for mid-2023. This would also potentially create 100-150 construction jobs.
Residents were told that energy from Juliet Solar will deliver power to the 69-kV Weston substation. Overall, the project has expected to generate 212,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually.
For more information about Juliet Solar Project and to submit any comments or concerns, click here.