GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Clay County is one step closer to becoming the home of a 425-acre solar energy center south of the city after a Board of County Commissioners vote.

During the Aug. 28 regular BCC meeting, representatives from Florida Power and Light, the company behind the potential solar energy center and Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc., the company helping FPL secure the land in Clay County, appeared before the board to answer any final questions the BCC might have before voting to send the FPL application to Tallahassee. These representatives essentially explained to the BCC the information they doled out at a community meeting held last month.

As proposed, the 425-acre Magnolia Springs Solar Energy Center would be built south of Green Cove Springs on a parcel of land purchased by FPL near Leno Road and Haller Airpark. This specific solar energy center, which is just one of a handful FPL has in Northeast Florida, would produce enough energy to power about 15,000 homes. Most of this energy would be going to FPL customers outside of the county as the power company has only about 1,000 Clay County customers.

“We chose that site because it met all the criteria that we look for to potentially build out our next project,” FPL Spokesman Stephen Heiman said at the community meeting held in July. “There’s not a timeline for this project just yet, but what you’ll see across the state is we’re planning ahead to meet those power needs and we routinely purchase parcels that we believe will help us meet those needs.”

According to Heiman, the use of solar energy is growing at a rapid pace. Heiman said FPL is undergoing one of the largest solar expansions in the country and that within the next 15 years, the country will see a much larger integration of solar energy into utilities across the country.

The solar center would bring 200 to 300 jobs to locals for the 7-to-9-month construction period, and those workers could be making upwards of $18 an hour.

When it was time for the BCC to discuss the application, the only conversation centered around making the county more money off projects like this.

“I think it’s a great project and I support it,” said County Commissioner Wayne Bolla. “The only thing I regret is we’ve only got so much industrial property in Clay County and we’re taking 300 acres of [roughly] 1,000 acres and [one] the county enjoys no new jobs out of that and today we’re going to zone this thing from industrial, which produces more taxes than agriculture, to agriculture.

“Going forward, I suggest we take a look at possibly coming up with a zoning category for solar farms that fits into the industrial box, so we can at least make a few bucks on this tax-wise,” Bolla said.

The other three members of the board – County Commissioner Gayward Hendry was absent as he was required to be at the elections office where he serves on the canvassing board – agreed with Bolla. In a 4-0 vote, the BCC amended the County’s 2040 Future Land Use Map from Industrial to Agriculture on 175 acres and from Rural Residential to Agriculture on 165 acres to allow the solar farm to move forward. Because this is a transmittal, the BCC’s vote isn’t the final say. Now, this goes to Tallahassee where the state will look over the application and everything else involved. After state approval, they’ll send it back to the BCC for a final vote. If there are issues with the proposal, the state will send it back to the BCC and FPL to correct any outlying problems to again move forward for final approval.

The next BCC meeting is Sept. 11.