In partnership with Scenic Hill Solar, the University of Arkansas will soon break ground on four solar plants — the first phase of a plan to provide renewable energy to a majority of campuses and divisions of the university system.
The first four plants will be built in Stuttgart, Mena, De Queen and Fayetteville and will supply power to major universities, community colleges and offices in the UA System. Scenic Hill Solar, a company based in Little Rock and led by former lieutenant governor Bill Halter, will build, own and operate each of the solar installations.
The UA System eventually plans to build a total of 18 solar power plants statewide. Scenic Hill Solar estimates that after all the plants are constructed over the next year and a half, the plants will generate over 4 billion kilowatt hours of tidy electricity over 40 years, with the environmental benefit being equivalent to planting 46 million trees. When completed, it will be among the largest solar projects in the state.
The first four sites will produce 8,240 kilowatts of power, with the project in Mena being the largest by far.
New UA System President Jay Silveria estimated that the system would save more than $125 million in energy costs from the solar installations, which the system intends to reinvest in students. Halter estimated the economic benefit would be over $120 million across the state as the company rallies private capital. Constructing the project will employ hundreds.
The solar plants “will provide electricity savings and price stability for the University of Arkansas,” Halter said in a press release.
But even as Scenic Hill Solar pushes ahead with construction, federal funding that undergirds the project remains locked up in a messy court battle.
When the project was announced in October, national climate nonprofit Climate United announced it would provide $31.8 million in financing. But that money was provided from a Biden-era program called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that the Trump Administration — in an unprecedented move — has tried to claw back.
While the funding was already appropriated and obligated to Climate United and awardees, the money was held in accounts at Citibank. The Environmental Protection Agency under Trump appointee Lee Zeldin ordered Citibank to give the funding back to the EPA, setting off a legal fight.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the EPA to unfreeze the funding, writing that the “EPA offers no rational explanation for why it suspended the grants” and terminated multiple grant programs “overnight.” But an appeals court has agreed that the funding should remain frozen while the case plays out.
Zeldin and EPA lawyers argue that they are saving taxpayers money and that the money was improperly obligated to the climate organizations. But Climate United argues that the funds were appropriated by Congress and awarded to their organization and that the agency cannot rescind the funds.
Climate United was granted a total of $6.97 billion from the Biden program under the Inflation Reduction Act. The nonprofit has warned it could shut down if it doesn’t receive access to their awarded funds. Climate United didn’t respond to a request for comment on the future of the funding.
