CASPER — The company behind a 2,000-acre solar project rejected by Natrona County commissioners a year ago is back for another round.
Enfinity Global, the mother company to EG Haystack Solar LLC, sent letters to landowners within two miles of its project and invited them to an informational meeting at the Fort Caspar Museum on Monday evening.
Company representatives learned in the 2 1/2 hour meeting that the opposition to their proposal that led to its defeat at the county board meeting on Feb. 4, 2025, has not waned.
“I just want you to know there’s going to be a battle,” Gary Williams, a resident of the tiny Natrona community told Haystack Solar spokesman Dale Harris before his presentation. “We’re not going to put up with it.”
Harris and partner Ethan Jahnke faced another two hours plus of questions and opposition as the company tries to resurrect the project which the spokesmen advocate “will provide more American energy independence.”
“This is our door opening right now, we are coming back and starting again,” Harris told the group. “We have to work with the county before we go down the (Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality) Industrial Siting Division process.”
Jahnke said they want to make sure that a conditional use permit with Natrona County is approved before taking the project to the state and going through the industrial siting process.
“Because that is a very, very intense process,” he said. “If this doesn’t get approved then we won’t go through the process.”
The initial project involved 2,010 acres on the private ranch land, but the revised project adds 160 acres to avoid conflict with a neighboring rancher whose cattle grazing would have been affected by the former site plan.
199-Megawatt Generating Station
Just like the last proposal voted down by county commissioners 3-2, the company is proposing to construct a 199-megawatt generating station and battery storage facility capable of storing 100 megawatts of power.
The project will involve six sections of private ranch land in Township 35 North, Range 83 West.
Harris said the company intends to use crystalline silicon solar panels that do “not indicate any public health burden” and will not use panels containing cadmium telluride, a heavy metal known to cause kidney and lung damage.
Harris told the gathering of about 40 residents along with a few of the region’s state government representatives that EG Haystack Solar waited for a “cooling off” period of a year before bringing the project back and are starting with the Natrona community residents to hear their concerns and feedback.
Jahnke said the company has had multiple conversations with Wyoming Game & Fish Department to try and work through concerns about the corridor for pronghorn and other wildlife that are in the area.
“We have added multiple migration corridors allowing for the necessary flow of big game,” Harris said.
Batteries will go in special containers designed to minimize fire risk, he said. The company would be able to monitor “every single cell” within a module and if an issue develops “we are able to replace it,” Harris said.
He said all the batteries go through testing to ensure that there are no faults that would cause a fire.
Waiting To Purchase
The technology continues to evolve and get safer, and the company is waiting to make purchases until after the project gets approval, Harris said.
He said that the company “is in the middle of filling out” an application for the conditional use permit for the county and estimates it will be before the Natrona County Planning and Zoning Department within the next couple of months.
But community members concerned about potential fire hazards, contamination of groundwater going into Casper Creek and eventually the North Platte River, property values, as well as having an “eyesore” to look at from the top of Pine Mountain made clear where they stood.
Ranchers Mark Rosenbaum and Bill Larsen were concerned about the fire risk if the panels and batteries catch fire as well as the risk of selenium from soil in the area being stirred up and sent through runoff and groundwater into their cattle’s primary water source in a very arid part of the state.
“I know they claim those batteries are safe,” Rosenbaum said. “Anyone who's been around a battery knows you can blow one up.”
For Larsen, he said he struggled to understand how one person or one company has a “right to ruin a community.”
“This exact same solar farm proposal was presented to the community at the Natrona County Board of Commissioners a year ago and was met with great resistance from the community with the exception of two people who don’t live here,” Larsen told Cowboy State Daily. “I learned as I grew up and attended school that ‘no means no.’”
Other residents also raised fire concerns, telling the Haystack’s representatives that if a fire developed the response time would be too long and the people who live in the areas along Natrona Road south of the plant could be trapped as the road is their only way in and out.
“We’re toast and you don’t care,” a woman said.
Harris said the company will build a new bridge across Casper Creek that has been an issue for residents during times when the creek has flooded. The company will also pay for a turning lane off of U.S. 20/26 to help traffic flow during the construction process, he said.
Water Issues
Addressing another concern about water, the company would purchase and haul any water to the site that it needs during construction or afterwards, Harris said.
Jahnke said the company is working to “engineer” the site to prevent water runoff and that if needed there may be “sedimentation ponds.” He emphasized that the company would have to go through DEQ approval involving water issues before the project could move forward.
Harris acknowledged that not everyone at the meeting “will be happy with the changes” to the project or with the project itself. He told the group that he gets calls “regularly” from those who support “what we’re doing.”
He declined to put a number on those calls for Cowboy State Daily.
The project timeline calls for the environmental studies, permitting, project design and a utility interconnection study by the third quarter of 2027 with construction to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027 and be completed by the second quarter of 2029.
Harris conceded that any electricity produced by the project would be put into the nation’s electrical grid and would not necessarily benefit the state or area residents.
Shawn Hoy, who six months ago purchased property on top of Pine Mountain above the proposed solar project, said he knew nothing about the project or its defeat last year. He believes the project will be an “eyesore” on the landscape for him and poses no benefit.
“I’m off grid,” he said. “What do I gain from it.”
County Commissioner Dave North, who attended the meeting and voted against its approval last year, said he was notified by residents about the meeting and had no idea prior to those contacts that Haystack was going to try and push the project through again. He was there to listen.
“They haven’t brought anything to the county yet,” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
