Gainesville’s first large-scale solar project is one step closer to its moment in the sun.
The City Commission unanimously approved a contract amendment to the FL Solar 6 project, a 75-megawatt solar plant about 15 miles west of downtown Gainesville in 2024.
The amendment allows for an expansion of the plant and moves it further from its original location near the historic Black community in Archer.
FL Solar 6, commonly called Sand Bluff Solar, is the result of negotiations between Gainesville Regional Utilities and Origis Energy, a Miami-based solar power development company. The project will yield a facility that produces 75 megawatts of solar energy a day and 24 megawatts for energy storage, fast-tracking Gainesville to meet its goal to produce net-zero carbon emissions by 2045.
Origis originally landed the contract as the city’s solar energy provider in 2020, when the commission approved it to build a solar plant. It proposed a 638-acre facility on County Road 346 that would produce 50 megawatts of energy a day and provide 12 megawatts of energy storage, which the Alachua County Plan Board approved for construction.
Plans to build, however, were halted when the County Commission denied the company’s location permit in July 2021 due to mass pushback from Archer residents, including legal action from a coalition of about 30 neighbors within a predominantly Black community. Origis withdrew its application without appeal but maintained it would see its contract with the city through with another proposal.
The new location, about a mile and a half south of the original and more than 2,000 feet away from any residences, eases the disruption to nearby neighborhoods.
GRU’s Interim Chief Sustainability Officer Eric Walters said Origis continually engaged with Archer residents in the period between its permit denial and the revised proposal.
“What we saw here was basically going back to the community and saying, ‘What happened? What did we do wrong here? What do we change?” Walters said.
The amended contract includes a price increase with the raised energy capacity of the plant. After a cost analysis of what GRU would pay to build its own plant, Walters said the numbers were about the same as what Origis proposed, and a quicker timeline with less operation risk made the Origis contract the better deal.
The project won’t break ground yet until March 2024. Next steps include a neighborhood workshop, a preliminary permit application and a monthslong development review that will lead up to construction, with a projected operational date of Dec. 31, 2024.
Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward said the plant reflects a community-wide desire for sustainable energy and lower utility rates. A new plant would diversify energy sources and help cut costs, he said, and the use of solar energy aids in the city’s net-zero target.
“This is the direction of the people of Gainesville,” he said. “This allows us to go back to our constituents and say, ‘We hear you.’”
