All Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative consumer-members benefit from access to the affordable, locally generated power produced by three solar farms, which generate a combined 2.75 MW of power.
As an electric distribution cooperative, Heartland’s primary role is to purchase wholesale power through our generation and transmission cooperative, KEPCo. However, our contract with KEPCo allows us to generate a certain percentage of our own energy in order to lower costs during peak times when the demand on the grid — and the price of electricity — is at its highest.
In 2020, Heartland purchased plots of land near some of our substations for the purpose of establishing solar farms. We then entered into a long-term agreement with Today’s Power, Inc. to build and operate solar farms on those sites.
The solar farms are owned, operated, and maintained by TPI, but all power generated is purchased by Heartland at a set rate and used locally by Heartland members. This reduces how much power we have to buy from wholesale sources, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars over time and helping keep rates stable.
Heartland also maintains and operates diesel generators for the same purpose.
The three solar farms are located next to and tied directly into three of our substations:
- Greenbush – 1 MW facility operating since May 2021
- Urbana – 1-MW facility operating since May 2021
- Devon – 750-kW facility operating since October 2023