City Council Approves Land Lease for Solar Plant

By Kevin Robinson in News on Jul 30, 2009 2:20PM

The Chicago City Council approved a 25 year land lease to Exelon Corp. and SunPower Corp. yesterday, to build a 40 acre solar power plant on the polluted and vacant International Harvester plant, in Chicago's South side West Pullman neighborhood. The ordinance calls for a lease term of 25 years with an option to continue the lease for 25 more years after the initial lease term ends. The agreement stipulates that Exelon will pay the city $110,000 a year for the lease, and the city will assume $1.3 million of the environmental clean up costs. That includes asbestos-contaminated soil and removal of underground tanks. If other tanks are found, the city will split the costs with Exelon, although other environmental clean up costs will be assumed by the joint venture.

"Chicago is far behind other major cities with solar energy and this would give us five times what we now have," said Brian Granahan, a spokesman for Environment Illinois, told the Daily Herald. "This has gotten a lot of support to both get rid of an eyesore and expand renewable energy." The project is expected to create 200 jobs from the construction, although once the plant is operating, only one full-time worker will be employed there.