Upper East Texas News

RWE Renewables Americas LLC seeks a series of tax abatements in Hopkins County in order to develop a solar industrial site called Bright Arrow Solar, which would be within the Sulphur Springs Independent School District (ISD). 

On Sept. 21, Bright Arrow Solar submitted a $75,000 application to the Sulphur Springs Independent School District Board of Trustees, requesting a Chapter 313 agreement, which limits the taxable value of the project over 10 years to $25 million per year, down from $275 million per year, according to media reports.

“School boards expect to get extra tax revenue down the road and start spending money they don’t have,” said David Dunagan, who founded the advocacy group Save Van Zandt County in 2018. “Then the project ends up not getting built. Or, even worse, the project is built then for some reason it is abandoned and the county has to pick up the tab to clean up the industrial site.”

The Sulphur Springs ISD board members areRobert Cody, Robbin Vaughn, Jason Dietze, John Prickette, Leesa Toliver, Craig Roberts and Kerry Wright. | The Sulphur Springs ISD website

Dunagan is among the local activists who oppose solar farms.

“These projects are anti-job, anti-agriculture, and at the core, anti-environmental,” Dunagan told Upper East Texas News. “They are attempting to build a large industrial solar project directly around my property – on all four sides. Another company has started to build one in another part of Van Zandt County and we have been watching the destruction it has caused.”

If the application is approved by February 2021, KSST Radio reported that the proposed project would be for a 300 MW/AC facility with construction scheduled to start in June 2021 and finish by December 2022.

But opponents don’t believe taxpayers should subsidize projects like Bright Arrow Solar.

“County taxpayers don’t get many if any additional jobs out of them,” Dunagan said in an interview. “In most cases, valuable agricultural land is taken away and there is no guarantee these projects will last the projected 30 years that they claim.”

As previously reported, renewable energy suppliers have received $19.4 million in subsidies in Texas since 2006, resulting in favorable and sometimes negative prices charged by renewable suppliers to gain market share, according to an Energy Alliance study.

“These companies that build, do so under an individual LLC so they can file bankruptcy without affecting the parent company,” Dunagan said. “Additionally, they do not put up any money for remediation or decommissioning. If a plant is even partially destroyed by an act of nature, they will walk – leaving hundreds of thousands of solar panels containing toxic materials. Taxpayers foot the bill.”

Dunagan advises other concerned citizens to take action on the local level.

"Attend school board and county commissioner’s meetings," he said. "Talk to members of the school boards and your individual county commissioners. Bring them the facts about these projects and cut through the rehearsed falsehoods these renewable energy representatives spread."