A ribbon-cutting ceremony this week celebrated the completion of what officials are calling the largest solar energy project in Milwaukee’s history — a 4.6-megawatt expansion built atop a former city landfill just southeast of Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. The addition triples the site’s total output to 6.85 megawatts, and stickers will soon go up on the doors of fire stations, libraries, police stations and other city buildings now running on renewable power.
The expansion is part of We Energies’ state-approved Renewable Pathway program, according to CBS 58, which first reported on the completed project. Under the arrangement, We Energies finances construction, maintenance and the land lease, while the city pays a premium of an additional half-cent per kilowatt-hour for the electricity it draws. Erick Shambarger said the cost of inaction on climate change and renewable energy is substantially greater than the city’s payments under the deal, per the station’s report.
The 44-acre site at 1600 E. College Ave. was long considered off-limits to conventional development because its clay cap prevented drilling into the ground, according to Urban Milwaukee. The site’s development complications left it unusable for other development, while solar racks could be installed without being drilled into the ground, turning an idle municipal liability into a clean-energy asset.
Costs, Rebates and the Fine Print
Urban Milwaukee’s reporting puts the net annual cost to Milwaukee taxpayers at roughly $84,000, a figure that accounts for the half-cent-per-kilowatt-hour premium offset by land lease payments of about $800 per acre that We Energies pays the city. The first phase of the project generated 2.25 megawatts before this latest build-out pushed the farm’s total capacity to 6.85 megawatts across 9,700 solar panels, tripling the original footprint…