The Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency has approved more than $88 million in tax breaks over the next 30 years for a solar power project in South Ripley that will power more than 55,000 average New York homes each year while also storing some of the energy for future use.
ConnectGen, which has been working on its South Ripley Solar Project since 2018, plans to put up a 270-megawatt solar farm with a 20-megawatt battery energy storage component. The project will create 200 construction jobs, but only a handful of permanent positions.
“This has been a long and sometimes challenging project; however, at the end of the day the revenue from this project will benefit the citizens of the town for many years to come," Town of Ripley Supervisor Doug Bowen said.
According to the CCIDA, the project is expected to generate over $60 million in added tax revenues for the town of Ripley, the county, the Sherman and Ripley central school districts and the Ripley Volunteer Fire Department over the course of 30 years. Local landowners are also expected to receive more than $30 million through solar leases, easement agreements and "good neighbor" agreements.
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“This project is a win for the Town of Ripley, Chautauqua County and the State of New York," said Chautauqua County Executive P.J. Wendel. "We are thrilled that we have the land and infrastructure to attract this clean energy project to our area.”
Construction is expected to begin in late 2022, pending state and local approvals.
“This is a project that ConnectGen and the community have been working on for a couple of years,” said Mark Geise, deputy county executive for economic development and CCIDA CEO.
ConnectGen – which currently has 139 megawatts of operating projects and 15,000 megawatts of wind, solar and energy storage projects in development – is a renewable energy subsidiary of 547 Energy, which is the clean-energy business of private-equity firm Quantum Energy Partners.
“This agreement is a significant milestone for the project and the county, " said ConnectGen CEO Caton Fenz.