Bill Halter was fresh off a “solar panel signing” ceremony at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College when he offered an update last month on another big solar energy project his company is working on — this one for the city of Little Rock.
The event at Pulaski Tech on Oct. 22 was poignant for Halter, the former lieutenant governor and CEO of Scenic Hill Solar of Little Rock.
Pulaski Tech’s campus, you see, is on Scenic Hill in North Little Rock, Halter’s hometown.
“We were speaking in a building that was about 400 yards from a football field where I played as a boy,” he said in a telephone interview. “I told some of the members of my team as we drove up there that my brother and I, as boys, threw the morning newspaper route there. Imagine throwing newspapers at 4:30 in the morning in the neighborhood. It was almost kind of coming back full circle. It was nice.”
The gathering, dubbed A SolAR Future: Workforce, Investment and Education in the Natural State, included remarks by Halter, University of Arkansas System President Donald R. Bobbitt and Beth Bafford, CEO of Climate United.
Climate United, of Bethesda, Maryland, is the green energy coalition that announced a $31.8 million investment in preconstruction financing costs for an 18-array solar development to power the university system.
Bafford said the partnership with Scenic Hill demonstrated Climate United’s “commitment to investing in communities across the country, including throughout rural America.”
Scenic Hill will be installing arrays at rural sites like UA’s Community College at Rich Mountain in Mena, Cossatot Community College in De Queen, and Phillips Community College in DeWitt, Helena-West Helena and Stuttgart. All of those towns have fewer than 9,000 residents.
The 18 arrays will occupy 13 different electric service territories and cover the system’s 18 campuses. Pulaski Tech is in the footprint of North Little Rock Electric.
Scenic Hill is the state’s largest solar developer, ranked by total megawatts of installed capacity. And it has several irons in the fire these days.
Halter was delighted to talk about one of those, an array for the city of Little Rock projected to save the municipal government $18.5 million over the next 25 years. “That’s a 4.9-megawatt AC, 6.37-megawatt DC project that’s going to be located in the Port of Little Rock,” Halter said. “It will be owned by the city, so they will utilize the direct-pay provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and receive the tax credits back.”
The project will also benefit from a 40% investment tax credit for exceeding domestic content requirements. Clearing the American-made components hurdle added 10% to the investment tax credit.
The array will supply about 70% of the city’s electricity demand.
The project beat the Oct. 1 deadline to have legacy status in Arkansas’ net-metering system. That means the city will reap more than double the credit for excess power placed on the grid as arrays that failed to have a utility interconnection agreement by the deadline.
Scenic Hill hasn’t finalized when construction will start, Halter said. “We will begin construction when we have a good sense of both the interconnection costs and the interconnection timeline” from Entergy Arkansas, he said.
The Little Rock Board of Directors voted in April to rely on up to $12 million in short-term financing for the array.
“We prioritize both financial and environmental stewardship as we work to create a more sustainable Little Rock,” Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said in a statement. “Our ambitious and achievable sustainability goals include powering city operations with 100 percent clean energy by 2030.”
What’s next for Scenic Hill? “Really stay tuned for future developments,” Halter said.
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