The New Box Elder County Solar Farm is one of several new clean energy facilities in Utah

PLYMOUTH, Box Elder County — A new 80-megawatt solar farm in Box Elder County will provide power to several Utah towns across the state.

The project, called Steel Solar, consists of over 200,000 solar panels. SOLV Energy engineers said it is located on about 900 acres off Interstate 15.

“They get a weak radio signal from our operations center in San Diego, so there are antennas everywhere connected to the rows,” said Luke Derby, project manager. “The computers in San Diego set everything on a clock, a radio is sent out and the rows rotate as the sun moves throughout the day.”

Steel Solar is the latest project in Utah from national developer DE Shaw Renewable Investments.

“We are implementing about seven or eight projects, which is a huge investment for many years. We have spent five, six, seven years investing in this state,” said Hy Martin, chief development officer.

Cities across the state

Nearly 600 acres of solar panels provide power to 20 towns: Blanding, Bountiful, Ephraim, Fairview, Fillmore, Heber Light & Power, Hurricane, Hyrum, Lehi, Logan, Morgan, Mt. Pleasant, Paragonah, Payson, Price, Santa Clara, Springville, South Utah Valley Electric Service District, St. George and Washington.

Each city is part of Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or UAMPS. CEO and CEO Mason Baker said 20 of the company’s 50 members have gone solar.

“This solar array will be generated when peak loads occur in the summer, which is when our demand for electricity on the system will be highest,” Baker said.

He said the project would only run about 30% of the time in a given year.

DESRI’s solar farm in Tooele, called Elektron Solar, recently began producing power for Salt Lake City, Park City, some ski resorts and Utah Valley University.

Baker said customers at home won’t notice the difference.

“In terms of the overall resource basket, this is still a small part of it,” he said.

Withstand the weather

Derby said the solar panels can withstand harsh weather conditions.

“If too much snow accumulates on top of them, they can send a signal to tilt them all and dump the snow,” he said.

He said they last about 25 to 35 years.

“They go through something like a maintenance check once a year, but for the most part we’re working on all the bugs on site, so everything should run smoothly for the next five to 10 years,” Derby said.

Half of the panels are single-sided. The other half is double-sided.

“You need some of the sunlight reflecting off the ground or snow,” Derby said.

Baker said that while the panels are cheap, they are one of the resources many Utahns rely on.

“We need to have a diverse set of resources, whether or not they are renewable. We see room for natural gas,” he said. “We still have coal in our resource portfolio and it will remain there for some time.”

Martin said the panels are more cost-effective.

“Typically in our fleet, we have found that we are able to produce energy at a lower rate than older, less efficient coal plants,” he said.

He said Steel Solar’s capital costs are around $100 million. UAMP member communities pay for energy as soon as it comes online.

“Once the project actually declares COD and starts producing energy, UAMPS member communities pay us for that energy, that renewable energy, that we will produce on the project for the next 25 years,” Martin said.

The developer will own and operate these solar farms in the long term.

“We’re going to develop and build clean energy projects wherever we can, and we think Utah is looking to the future and we want to meet that demand, certainly with future clean energy developments,” Martin said.