ELKTON, Fla. – The St. Johns County Board of Commissioners will make the final vote Tuesday on a solar farm in Elkton.
846 acres of cabbage in St. Johns County will be turned into hundreds of acres of solar panels. The solar farm will be the first of its kind in the county and will go just south of the intersection of County Road 305 and State Road 207.
It’s a project by Florida Power and Light. The company hopes to begin in the next few years with construction taking six to nine months.
The county already approved the solar farm. Tuesday’s vote will focus on allowing the project to move forward without making sidewalk additions and planting trees a requirement of the project.
The farm will be operated remotely so there won’t be additional noise or traffic and it will not be a nuisance to neighbors, said FPL.
But some people who live in the area have concerns.
In October, more than 100 people who live in the area were invited to an open house where they had the chance to ask FPL employees questions, see renderings, video simulations and more.
FPL says the plant will generate 74.5 megawatts of clean, zero-emissions energy- that’s enough to power around 15,000 homes. The company recently built eight plants- two of which are located in Putnam and Alachua Counties. Four more, including one in Columbia County, are currently being built.
FPL expects to have a better idea of a start date for the solar farm in St. Johns County at the beginning of the year.