Process begins for solar rezoning Council also approves lease for energy storage facility

In a pair of actions that took a total of perhaps five minutes in a Boulder City Council meeting Tuesday that lasted nearly five hours, the city council approved the lease terms for a battery facility to be used for storing energy generated by existing solar panels. Also introduced was a potential action that would open up more than 783 acres in the Eldorado Valley for future solar development.

The action on rezoning was technical — a step that has to be taken under state open meeting laws before the council can deliberate on a proposed bill.

Bill No. 1962 will be placed on the agenda for public comment and discussion at a future council meeting.

The proposed bill would rezone 783.3 acres of land (see map) within the Eldorado Valley from its current designation as government open land (GO) to an ER designation for an energy resource. The Planning Commission already approved the plan on a unanimous vote in their June 21 meeting.

The action affects three areas. The first, dubbed Silver Peak phase 1, will be for additional solar panels and will not need the addition of utilities except for water for firefighting purposes.

The second, the Transwest substation site, is already under option to lease by a tenant while they work out entitlement work for an associated 400-mile transmission line. That facility will need a septic system and water but city staff have determined there is sufficient capacity for needed water already on the site or nearby.

The final area is slated for future solar development and the city plans to advertise the site as available for solar development later this year.

The second action was final council approval of a lease between the city and Nelson Hills Energy Storage to construct a 350-megawatt battery storage facility.

The lease calls for a base amount of $200,000 per year for the land while development and construction take place. Once the facility is online, the base lease amount would go up to $601,536.

Additionally, there is an energy storage fee. Assuming the facility is able to store and provide the full envisioned 350 megawatts for a period of four hours, that fee could potentially be $700,000 per year, making the total of about $1.4 million into the city budget annually.