Idaho company plans 405-acre solar farm

TWIN FALLS, Idaho – A south-central Idaho company plans to build a solar farm to produce energy using 150,000 solar panels on 405 acres in Jerome County.

Officials with Jerome-based Mid Point Energy said they will ask the Jerome County Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday to approve a special-use permit to build the solar farm south of Shoshone.

Company co-founder Tom Mikesell said the solar farm would produce enough power for 45,000 homes. The farm would be built on land owned by the company’s other co-founders, Steve and Mary Marshall, of Jerome.

“This new renewable energy solar project in Jerome will be the first commercial producing solar facility in southern Idaho,” Mikesell told The Times-News. “The Marshalls, as well as myself, believe that expanding southern Idaho’s renewable energy sources with a Jerome solar plant will be an economic boost to this region.”

The region already produces renewable energy with hydroelectric, wind, biomass and geothermal. Adding solar could make the region unique in Idaho.

“We’re going to be the only region in the state and probably the nation that can make that claim,” said Jan Rogers, executive director of the Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization. “That’s a big thing because it can help us attract other renewable energy producers and manufacturers.”

Mikesell, a Twin Falls county commissioner, said the company is working with Boise-based Edgewood Green Technologies to develop the solar farm.

The proposed wind farm is located near Idaho Power’s Mid Point substation, which would be used to connect the solar farm to the power grid, he said.

“We certainly are encouraging renewable energy,” said Dan Olmstead, public relations coordinator for Idaho Power.