Months after the City of Cheyenne cut the ribbon on its new Belvoir Ranch trail system, the city council is set to consider the addition of a 140-megawatt solar and battery storage project on a different part of the 18,800-acre property.
Ward II City of Cheyenne Councilman Tom Segrave was on the council when the city purchased the property in 2003. While solar wasn't always part of the plan, Segrave said Belvoir Ranch has always been meant to serve as a resource for the city and considering solar is just the newest chapter in that original purpose.
“It's kind of exciting,” Segrave said. “It's an opportunity. It's an asset that hasn't really been utilized. If the city could make some money off of this and not impact the other operations on the ranch, I think we should take a hard look.”
‘Underutilized resource’
At a work session Friday, city council members will hear a proposal from Hanwha Renewables, the company interested in developing the site. The lease itself will be introduced at Monday night's council meeting, where it will be read into the record and referred to the Finance Committee for further review.
At that point, Segrave said, the council will have an opportunity to hear public input.
Segrave said Hanwha Renewables is proposing an initial project on Belvoir Ranch with an option to pursue a second phase later. The company would contract with Black Hills Energy to sell the electricity it produces, he said, and the initial 140-megawatt project the city is considering would take up about 1,200 acres.
“Phase one is not overwhelming the ranch by any means,” Segrave said.
The trails that opened this summer are on the western side of the property. The proposed solar project would go on the opposite end, out of sight for hikers and bikers, he said.
The city originally bought the ranch as a potential landfill site, Segrave said, but shelved that plan when the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality allowed Cheyenne to expand its existing landfill instead. Still, he said the property has room for more development.
“This council has made the decision to try to take this underutilized resource owned by the city and try to make some money for the city for the citizens,” Segrave said.
It's been analyzed as a potential landfill site, if one is ever needed, and also sits atop groundwater with potential for well development.
Currently, the city leases land on the east side of the park for cattle grazing. But developing some of the potential energy resources, Segrave said, could generate more income than the grazing leases.
“The trails are on the west quarter, maybe a third, of the ranch,” Segrave said. “So at least two-thirds of the ranch is simply used for grazing. It could be used for a lot of different things.”
‘Kind of cool’
Already, Belvoir Ranch is home to 75 NextEra Energy wind turbines on 16,600 leased acres, part of its Roundhouse Wind Energy Center. Those turbine leases are worth $39 million to the city over 39 years, revenue that helped fund the ranch's new trail system.
Unlike the proposed solar project, those turbines are visible from the trails.
For Abigail Rose, a Cheyenne Realtor, passing beneath those turbines didn’t take anything away from her experience exploring the trails with her young children over the summer.
“I think they're kind of cool, honestly, just like big-ass windmills out there that you're walking under through the trails,” Rose said. “It's not a problem in my opinion, and I don't think solar panels would be a problem, either.”
Dominic Valdez, another Realtor in Cheyenne, had the opportunity to go mountain biking on the trails in December, before the area was open to the public. He said he wouldn’t want to see the majority of the acreage covered by solar panels and doesn't imagine that will be the case.
“We've been waiting for so long to get this Belvoir Ranch developed and open to recreation,” Valdez said. “I can't imagine anybody that was behind this development allowing somebody to do enough solar out there to screw things up.”
Because there’s not much shade on Belvoir Ranch, Valdez said he didn’t go mountain biking there after his initial visit. He sees the area as more of a fall destination, when the sun isn’t so brutal.
But he joked that maybe the proposed solar project could serve a dual purpose.
“There's not a whole lot of shade out there, but maybe you could go from solar panel to solar panel and and hang out in the shade of the solar,” Valdez said.
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
