(Radio Iowa) – The Nature Conservancy in Iowa is offering home and business owners in the state a crash course in solar power. Patrick Snell, the organization’s climate and external affairs associate, says the Grow Solar program is in its fourth year of helping Iowans navigate a course toward finding an affordable source of renewable energy. “It’s hard to know what to look for in solar, how to work with your utility, how to work with your municipality and figuring out all the right questions to ask,” Snell says. “What this program does is really put all that in front of them in a 30-minute educational series to get all those questions answered.”

Grow Solar is underway this summer in Polk County, after successful runs in Dallas, Warren, Linn, Jackson and Johnson counties. There’s also a longer program, the Solar Power Hour, where people can learn the basics of solar energy, along with some of the financial aspects. “The program is a limited group buy purchasing program, so anybody that wants to participate in the program, we basically do a bulk purchasing of individual solar systems,” Snell says. “We usually see about a 10% reduction in the price of solar for those individual homes or businesses.” The program aims to connect Iowa home and business owners with local, reputable installers, while warning them about the predatory tactics of some out-of-state solar companies.

“Good solar companies have a headquarters or an operation in the state, that’s a big one for us,” Snell says. “One other thing we look at is the number of installations they’ve done. There’s a lot of companies that will come in to just try it out, and you’ll end up paying for a lot of headaches both for that resident, as well as their local utilities.” Just because you see something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true, and this applies to the solar industry as well. Snell says people may want to steer clear of some companies that advertise on social media about the benefits of solar power.

“It’s something that can be good for someone’s pocketbook and good for their heart, and unfortunately from that altruistic side, we do see a lot of actors have misleading ads,” Snell says. “I would say there’s a lot of good players, there’s a lot of not-so-good players in the industry, so yes, there’s some ads to be wary of.” The Solar Power Hours are being held virtually and in-person to help equip Iowans with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions. Learn more at: https://www.growsolar.org/polk-county/

(Radio Iowa) – A wind farm proposed for the southwest corner of Iowa has cleared one major hurdle. The Fremont County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved Invenergy’s application for its Shenandoah Hills project. The site south of Shenandoah extends into Page County as well. Officials in Page County are still reviewing the company’s application. Mark Crowl, a development manager with Invenergy, says the turbines would generate 27 million dollars in property taxes for Fremont County — and property owners in the county will get one-and-half million dollars in annual payments for easements.

“Those dollars for the project stay here in the county,” he said. “This is a project that allows some of our participating landowners that have agricultural operations to add to that, and to have a project that allows them to kind of ride out the ups and downs and stay here in Fremont County.” The Fremont County board’s approval came after a two-hour-long public hearing Wednesday. Brian Langner of Farragut told the supervisors the only winner in the project is Invenergy.

“The energy’s going to go into the grid. It is not going to help our energy costs one bit,” he said. “It’s going to continue to tear apart our communities.” Supporters like Penny Bredensteiner of Northboro say the turbines will boost the county’s economy. “This will help the tax base, I think, a great deal,” she said. “It will bring money into our county which has no industry, no major industry, coming into it.”

Brandon Van Scyoc, of Sidney, questions the project’s impact on wildlife and on farmland enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. “They don’t care about us,” he said. “They don’t care about any of us. It’s all for the dollar.” Others raised concerns about noise from the turbines and told the board many homes located near to the proposed turbines were not included in the project map.

A Fremont County supervisor said the project fits within the county’s wind power ordinance and had been reviewed by the county’s engineer and attorney. A Page County supervisor says there are several unanswered questions about the project, including the impact the turbines might have on the signal for K-Y-F-R, an A-M radio station in Shenandoah.

The Shenandoah Hills Wind Energy Center would be located near the Missouri border, in southwestern Page and southeastern Fremont Counties, between the communities of Riverton and Coin.