Armadillo Solar Center, LLC is one step closer to obtaining tax abatements in Navarro County after a June 8 meeting of the Navarro County Commissioners Court.
At the meeting, commissioners heard testimony from the Director of Economic Development about how a reinvestment zone for the Armadillo Solar Center would work. At a public hearing where no members of the community spoke on the topic, the Commissioners Court voted unanimously to approve the creation of the Armadillo Solar Center Reinvestment Zone.
At the start of the hearing, John Boswell, Director of Economic Development in Navarro County explained that the reinvestment zone would cover 2,300 acres within the Mildred Independent School District.
Creation of the reinvestment zone allowed Mildred Independent School District, an affected entity, to apply for Chapter 313 incentives.
Chapter 313 of the Texas Economic Development Act allows school districts to offer temporary tax abatements for large scale businesses interested in moving to the area. The incentives include a value limitation on property in the school district.
Armadillo Solar Center is also requesting that the school district limit the taxable value of the project to $20 million, according to documentation from the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
During the meeting, representatives of the both Armadillo Solar Center and its Danish parent company, Orsted Onshore North America, spoke.
Representing Armadillo Solar Center, Victoria Alexander provided an overview of the 200-megawatt solar farm situated southeast of Mildred.
"We've established a relationship with Mildred ISD, and have submitted that 313 application; outreached to the community for any beneficial learning programs we can do at the high school and the college here,” she said. “We're just excited to engage with the Navarro community, and continue to work together on this project.”
The project started in November 2019 and has leases on the land from six property owners. Alexander expects that the project will start engineering studies over the next year, after environmental diligence is complete and the final lease signed.
The project promises to use 600,000 solar panels and generate 440,000 megawatt hours of energy every year, enough to power 42,500 homes.
During construction, the project is expected to create at least 200 jobs, but data from the Comptroller’s office shows that outside of construction, the project will create only 2 jobs, based on the industry standard of 1-2 jobs per 100 megawatts of power. In a letter requesting a waiver for job creation requirements, Alexander wrote that Armadillo Solar Center, LLC could commit to creating exactly two jobs outside the construction.