A new solar farm with the ability to produce enough electricity to power over 500 homes opened on Wednesday in southwestern Winsted.
The array is situated on leased land at 4430 250th St. The property is a farm owned by resident Patricia Karels and her family. Nautilus Solar, the company responsible for the construction, built the array after it contacted Karels in 2015 about possibly leasing her land for construction.
“I was in Phoenix that year, and I saw all these solar panels in the desert,” Karels said. “They said it’s how everyone’s getting their electricity down there and I said, ‘Hmm, how interesting.’ When I got home I had a call from them (Nautilus) and thought well this is interesting.”
Local business and church subscribers were present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony in the Karels’ backyard where food and refreshments were served. Afterwards, people were given a tour inside the property with project manager Holly Crabill.
“In the center of the farm we have our weather station pad,” Crabill said. “So that will gather all the weather data that will be used and collected, as well as all the power its collecting on a good solar day. We built them (the pads) up high so they will not get flooded out.”
One of the concerns brought up during the tour was the threat of severe storms and high winds.
“We do have high wind here,” Crabill acknowledged. “But maybe even a greater concern is snow load. I have heard some horror stories from other projects that if you aren’t engineering for that potential snow load, you can have huge problems.”
Due to the high snowfall in January and February, workers had to go into the site to dig out the panels. Snow banks were as high as halfway up the first panel. However, panel modules are wind rated up to 120 mph.
Nautilus also owns two other solar gardens in Lindstrom and St. Cloud. All three solar farms together produce enough energy to power approximately 1,500 homes, and the Winsted site will produce 4.21 megawatts of direct current. Construction started last summer by local contractors Knobelsdorff Electric and Berry Construction, and field testing of the panels commenced last winter. Project officials declined to comment on the total cost of the project.
Since Nautilus is leasing the land from the Karels family, their agreement will be revisted 20 years from now.
“The landowner gets together with us to decide if they want to continue it,” Crabill said. “At that point we’re probably looking to upgrade equipment since most of these solar projects haven’t even gone for 20 years.”
