OGALLALA- Ogallala and Nebraska Public Power District are poised to make the Keith County seat NPPD’s seventh retail town with a community solar farm.

The project should allow the city to cut its NPPD power bills and allow Ogallala residents to do likewise by subscribing for shares, said Pat Hanrahan, the district’s general manager for retail services.

Its 1.5-megawatt capacity “would be a very small percentage” of NPPD’s total power generation, “but the impact it will have on the community of Ogallala” will be greater, he said.

Ogallala is one of 79 Nebraska cities and villages where NPPD both sells and delivers electricity.

Hanrahan said GRNE Solar of Lincoln, which will lease the 13.5-acre site from the city and build the solar farm, should start construction this spring and likely will bring the project online next summer.

NPPD would buy the solar farm’s output from GRNE and work with the city in allocating shares to interested customers.

The power district, which has announced a goal of generating electricity with “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050, launched its community solar program in January 2017.

Venango and Scottsbluff hosted NPPD’s first two pilot projects, with the latter city later adding a second, larger solar farm, Hanrahan said.

NPPD spokesman Grant Otten said Ogallala’s city government could buy power generated by the solar farm for about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour — a full cent less than its current cost.

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