The Fayetteville Public Works Commission plans to build a new solar farm on U.S. 301 South in the South View area near Hope Mills.
The PWC’s board is scheduled to vote on Wednesday on whether to recommend that the Fayetteville City Council award a bid of $3.44 million to Oral’s Construction Company Inc. of Maxton to build the project.
There was one other bid, from Bowlin Group LLC of Walton, Kentucky, for $8.88 million.
The 1.9 megawatt solar farm is to be built on 43.75 acres the City of Fayetteville owns at 3858 Gillespie Street, also called U.S. 301. The property that used to be known as Sally Hills Farms, which a business directory says was once a horse boarding service.
The site is near the Elk Road intersection with U.S. 301 South.
The city bought this land for $1.35 million in January 2018, according to county tax records.
Once the PWC’s leaders approve the bid, they will forward it to the city council for final approval. After the PWC gives the contractor the go-ahead to begin, it will have a year to finish the project, the bid paperwork says.
The Fayetteville PWC — the electric, water and sewer utility owned by the city — in 2019 built another solar farm, for 1 megawatt of power, at its Butler-Warner Generation Plant site near Eastover. The Butler-Warner site also has a natural gas-powered generator, which can produce up to 265 megawatts of power, and batteries that the PWC says charge up overnight and produce 2 megawatts of power per hour during periods of peak demand.
The PWC says its customers as of 2021 were using an average of 226 megawatts per day. It buys power from Duke Energy Progress and activates the Butler-Warner plant as needed to help Duke supply the electric grid.
The PWC board meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in the PWC’s headquarters at 955 Old Wilmington Road. People who cannot attend in person may observe online via a livestream or via telephone. Click here for instructions on how to connect.
New power rates for businesses; 13.8 miles of sewer to be rehabbed
In other business, the PWC plans to:
Cumberland County’s lawmakers voted against the sewer line money
The $2.93 million for the sewer line rehab is coming from the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, commonly called ARPA, the meeting agenda says.
Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021. It is a wide-ranging $1.9 trillion spending bill intended to help revive the U.S. economy after it tanked during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Both of Cumberland County’s U.S. Senators at that time, Republicans Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, voted against the American Rescue Plan Act.
Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, who was serving in the U.S. House in 2021 before he won Burr’s Senate seat in 2022, voted against the funding.
So did Cumberland County’s lawmaker in the House of Representatives in 2021, Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson.
Cumberland County is now partly served by Republican U.S. Rep. David Rouser, who voted in 2021 against the ARPA funding.
Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop of Charlotte, who represented part of Cumberland County in 2019 and 2020, and who now is running for North Carolina Attorney General, voted against the ARPA legislation that is being used now to rehabilitate the sewer lines.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
