OREGON — At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the Ogle County Board heard a presentation from Mike Mudge of Rock River Energy Services regarding the county’s potential future involvement in community solar with US Solar.
Mudge said he's been working with the county on a potential 20-year agreement at a 15 percent discount to its power bill that would see no investment required by the county. A community solar project, farm or garden is a solar power installation that accepts capital from and provides output credit and tax benefits to multiple customers, including individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and other investors.
Getting into community solar would result in a $12,415 annual savings for the county, Mudge said. Community solar helps the state to meet its clean energy goals and utilizes state incentive programs.
Ogle County would be involved with five local community solar gardens in the region, including one each in Whiteside County, Ogle County and Manville and two in Fulton. Each of them is planned to come online in 2025. Those five gardens have enough capacity to take care of all five Ogle County power accounts. The power from the solar gardens will go onto ComEd's system.
Ogle County would be the first county in ComEd's western territory to get involved in community solar.
Engineering
The board unanimously approved engineering agreements for two projects during the meeting.
The first was for the engineering services for the replacement or extension of 21 road culverts on North German Church Road with Willett, Hofmann & Associates for $176,891.
The second was for phase two of work on a Mill Road bridge rehabilitation with Willett, Hofmann & Associates for $32,920.
ARPA
The board unanimously approved the use of $5,288 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds on a Carrier Interface with ADP and BlueCross/BlueShield. Board Chairman John Finfrock (R, District 7, Mt. Morris) said the new interface will make the exchange of information easier with employees, such as the addition of children to health insurance plans, and will save the county on data error and time.
