Project’s site plan was approved in 2021 and first extension was approved in 2024
The Henderson City-County Planning Commission on Tuesday approved an extension of the site plan of a 400-plus acre solar installation near the 425-Bypass.
An initiative of Henderson Municipal Power & Light, the project will encompass 419 acres of land under contract with landowners with the total fenced area at 292 acres, said Brad Bickett, the general manager of HMP&L.
A moratorium that the Henderson County Fiscal Court approved on any new solar projects in February doesn’t affect this project because it had received approvals before the moratorium was put in place. Because the project’s site plan was first approved in 2021 and then was followed by an approval of an extension on the site plan in 2024, Tuesday’s extension approval is considered as being grandfathered in, said Planning Commission Executive Director Brian Bishop.
The project, Henderson County Solar LLC, initially was planned for 541 acres on either side of the 425-Bypass. But Bishop said the project’s footprint has shrunk and now it will entail 419 acres.
The energy collected from the solar field will be transferred directly to Henderson Municipal Power & Light’s substation #7 on South Green Street and will then be dispersed to provide 20% of the energy needed by city residents and businesses, Bickett said.
He added the installation will produce 100,000 MW of electricity in a year. HMP&L customers use some 500,000 MW of electricity every year, he said.
Late last year, HMP&L attempted to get approval for a battery energy storage system near the location of substation #7 on South Green Street. The utility’s request for the parcel’s rezoning to industrial—which is required for the BESS—was approved, but HMP&L additionally needed to get conditional uses approved by the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment. That didn’t happen. BOZA denied that request by a 3-1 vote in November. Bickett said Tuesday that the BESS at that location is not needed to store and then transfer the energy from the solar panels.
Earl Byrna, a nearby resident who also owns and runs Country Court Campground off U.S. 41-A, spoke in opposition of the site plan approval extension.
Although resigned that his opposition would have any effect in stopping the project, Byrna said he spoke to remind those involved in the process to be good stewards of the land, leaving it better than it was before they came.
“You can’t always fight change,” Byrna said. “But you want to hold people accountable to protect your neighborhood.”
On one hand, Byrna said he’d benefit financially because those who work on the solar fields will stay at his campground; on the other hand, he’s also concerned about the solar field changing the area like what has occurred in Robards.
Bickett said this one won’t look like what is seen in Robards, where two solar companies have currently installed solar panels on thousands of acres of the countryside.
Bickett said he expects construction on the Henderson County Solar project to begin in early 2026 with a December 2026 completion date. He hopes that the energy gathered from the solar panels will start to be used by HMP&L in early 2027.
The HMP&L general manager said the utility will roll off some of the contracts from which it secures energy usage in mid-2027, and so getting the solar field up and running is necessary.
On the same day as the site plan approval extension, HMP&L signed an “interconnection agreement” with Stellar Renewable Power, which will operate the solar fields, and Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Bickett said. MISO is the electric grid operator for the central United States, serving 15 states and the Canadian province of Manitoba. HMP&L is a member of MISO.
The interconnection agreement allows for the energy from the project to be used by HMP&L and MISO.
All planning commissioners voted in favor of the site plan extension except X.R. Royster, who voted no, and Heather Toews, who abstained.
