The Kane County Energy & Environment Committee discussed a possible community solar project for the vacant Fabian property during its Oct. 20 meeting, with staff reporting three responses to a county RFP and committee members asking for a broader board briefing before any formal vote.

At a presentation, Arnie Schrammel, an energy consultant working with county staff, said the county issued the RFP to Illinois-licensed community solar developers and received three proposals ranging from about 11 to 25 acres. Schrammel said the developersand the countywere treating the effort as a potential revenue source that would not require county capital investment. "The annual lease payments range from $3,500 an acre to $9,500 an acre," Schrammel said, and estimated the county could expect roughly $100,000 to $130,000 a year in lease revenue depending on the final size and developer. He said 35-year total lease payments could exceed $5 million.

Jody Wallnick, an environmental staff member who helped oversee the RFP, described the site choices and constraints on the former sheriff/jail parcel near Fabian, including portions of the land classified as brownfield and an area that contains monitoring wells and landfill gas infrastructure. "This area for sure is unbuildable," she said when staff pointed to the landfill-monitoring-well area; Wallnick and Schrammel explained developers would avoid or engineer around those features.

Schrammel gave technical and schedule details: modeled annual production for a field on the site ranged roughly 4 million to 7 million kilowatt-hours, comparable to the countyjudicial jail solar array (about 2 MW, just under 4 million kWh annually). He said developers expected to pay for needed ComEd distribution upgrades and that interconnection and engineering due diligence could cost a developer $100,000 to $200,000 before a project is confirmed. Schrammel said developers had indicated willingness to pay up to $1.5 million for some infrastructure upgrades where required.

The presentation noted several program features that would affect revenue and community benefit: developers told staff they would operate a community-driven model that would give preference to Kane County facilities and residents as off-takers, and they expected to offer at least a 10% reduction compared with ComEd retail prices for community subscribers. Schrammel also summarized tax and fiscal implications, saying the developer would assume property tax obligations and that first-year property tax increases were estimated between $20,000 and $40,000 (with much of the tax benefit flowing to local taxing bodies including the Geneva School District).

Committee members pressed for context and alternatives. A board member identified as "John" said the project felt "far downstream" without full board approval and asked whether selling the parcel for other uses (commercial, housing) had been analyzed. Deborah Allen and others recalled prior board discussions about preserving control of the land and noted previous cleanup work; Allen asked whether the county had investigated sale offers in the $2 million to $5 million range in the past. Several members emphasized the county should compare a long-term lease scenario, outright county ownership and lease, and an outright sale in a return-on-investment analysis.

Several board members urged caution about moving too far into developer due diligence without a clear signal from the full board. Committee members asked staff to gauge board interest and bring the matter to the Committee of the Whole for education before any formal authorizing vote. "If we want to get to the point of locking in one of these developers, they're going to be spending upwards of $200,000 to get to the next step," Wallnick said; committee members noted developers typically do not make that investment without a formal county commitment.

The timeline for federal incentives was raised as a factor in pace. Schrammel told the committee that under current federal rules the 30% investment tax credit (discussed in the presentation as the relevant federal credit) requires project activities to start by July 4, 2026 and be in production by December 2027 to qualify under the schedule discussed. Staff said the tax credit timing increases pressure to complete procurement and permitting steps promptly if the county chooses to pursue the project.

The committee did not vote to select a developer or approve a lease. Instead members reached a working consensus that staff should conduct informal polling of full-board members on interest and then present the project to the Committee of the Whole for education and discussion; any formal authorization to allow a developer to proceed with major study costs would require a subsequent full-board vote. Several members also recommended that administrative or facilities management staff be included in future briefings to ensure operational constraints (communications towers, utilities and easements) are fully documented.

Key outstanding questions from committee members included the countyversus developertax and revenue split under local rules, precise interconnection costs from ComEd, exact acreage available for panels once tower guide wires and protected trees are excluded, and a comparative financial analysis of lease vs. sale vs. county-owned development.

Next steps identified by staff and committee members were: polling the full board to gauge appetite, scheduling a Committee of the Whole briefing (staff suggested October 28 as a potential date), and preparing materials that compare the lease scenario, county-owned scenario and sale option for board review. A formal developer option or agreement would come later only after a full-board vote.