The Mississippi Public Service Commission will conduct a hearing this month on whether to grant authority to Wildwood Solar LLC for the construction of a 100-megawatt solar electric generating and storage facility in Tallahatchie County.
The hearing, which is open to the public, will occur on Tuesday, Nov. 28, beginning at 10 a.m., in the PSC hearing room on the first floor of the Woolfolk State Office Building in Jackson.
PSC meetings and hearings are livestreamed on the commission's YouTube channel.
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Laura Dixon, senior attorney for the PSC, is set to moderate as hearing examiner. The PSC will later vote on whether to approve Wildwood Solar's requested certificate of public convenience and necessity, which would enable the project to move forward.
NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Florida-based NextEra Energy, is shepherding the Wildwood solar project in Tallahatchie County.
During a public event last fall at the Charleston Arts Center, Karl Kremser, director of development for the Wildwood project, told The Sun-Sentinel that the company has a long-term lease option on about 1,500 acres of land situated below Webb, south of the intersection of U.S. 49 East and Mississippi 32 West.
He said three private landowners own the agricultural land, which rests on both sides of Highway 49.
Kremser noted that the solar farm would be built on close to 1,000 acres.
The project would entail a capital investment of roughly $150 million and would create 200 to 300 jobs during its 14- to 15-month construction phase, he added.
The facility would generate 100,000 watts of electricity, said to be enough to power approximately 16,000 homes. The electricity would be sold to Entergy Mississippi LLC under a power purchase agreement with a term of 20 years.
The solar station would connect to Entergy's transmission grid, as does Entergy's own Sunflower Solar Station, a 100,000-watt facility completed last year near Ruleville.
Despite a partial ad valorem tax exemption granted by Tallahatchie County, Board of Supervisors attorney Tommy Reynolds said the solar farm would pay up to $25 million in local ad valorem taxes over 30 years. The company's own January 2023 petition seeking the PSC certificate estimates tax revenue of $12 million over the 20-year life of the project.
Wildwood Solar filings before the PSC are posted here.
