Boonville Accepts Bid to Build Solar Field

The City of Boonville is one step closer to breaking ground on a new solar field in hopes of helping energy customers save some money.

“Green energy, you know, we hear about it, we talk about it, well we did it,” said Mayor Charlie Wyatt.

Thursday’s board of works meeting in Boonville lasted all of five minutes – and in that time – mayor Charlie Wyatt announced plans on the city’s commitment to clean, renewable energy.

“It’s an opportunity for us to be able to put this solar project in and right now, in today’s dollars, it’s equal to about 17,000 dollars a month in electrical savings,” said Wyatt.

Bidding for the project started in November with five coming back before the deadline.

“The low bidder is local to the area, they’re based out of Tell City, Casey Electric, and we deemed them to be qualified,” said City Engineer Clint Roos.

Casey Electric’s bid was nearly 883,000 dollars.

The project is phase 1 of the project with the solar field set to break ground south of the Boonville sewer works off Millersburg road – projected to cost nearly 1.7 million dollars when it’s all said and done.

“It’s tax money, that’s what it is,” said Wyatt. “There’s no raise or anything like that. It’s a bond anticipation note that we have taken. It’s kind of like buying a house. You put everything up front and then you know what you can spend, and that’s what we were able to do.”

The idea was unveiled 2 1/2 years ago as part of a long-term goal for the city of Boonville.

“We’re also looking, hopefully, in the future about being able to do solar energy at our wells over in Spencer County where we produce the energy, and then it goes to the bulk plant,” Wyatt added.

City officials say construction of the solar field will begin late February or early March in hopes of having it up and running sometime in the summer.