ALAMOSA COUNTY — According to Brandon Conard with SolRiver Capital, Korsail Energy, a Denver-based solar energy producer and storage firm, expects to file the necessary paperwork with Alamosa County for its proposed Cornflower Solar and Storage Project in the near future. Korsail has partnered with early-stage finance capital company SolRiver.
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ALAMOSA COUNTY — According to Brandon Conard with SolRiver Capital, Korsail Energy, a Denver-based solar energy producer and storage firm, expects to file the necessary paperwork with Alamosa County for its proposed Cornflower Solar and Storage Project in the near future. Korsail has partnered with early-stage finance capital company SolRiver.
Korsail originally had proposed the project in 2023, only to have their application rejected by the Alamosa County Board of Commissioners on July 10.
In an interview with the Valley Courier, Conard said, "We are on the same parcel [as originally proposed] and have redesigned it significantly. One of the concerns was how it might prevent wildlife migration over Rock Creek, we no longer are proposing the portion of the project down to the creek. The other concern is that we were impacting wildlife wetlands, which are temporary wetlands, and now we are not. The original design was poorly conceived. It had panels on top of those playa wetlands."
In July, when Alamosa County rejected Korsail's original application, Commissioner Lori Laske said, “Building it over Rock Creek drainage on 768 acres between two wildlife refuges is not an ideal location."
The project includes a 90-megawatt solar production system and an 80-megawatt battery system.
According to Conard, the $240 million project will yield the county $400,000 annually in property taxes for 40 years, totaling approximately $16 million. "In addition to that, there are a bunch of jobs. Forty people will be engaged in the preconstruction and engineering phase. Most of those will be with local businesses, such as electrical firms, survey firms, title insurance, etcetera,” said Conard.
"At the height, we will have 300 construction jobs, and we are taking steps now to hire as many of them as possible in the Valley. That is estimated to deliver about $8 million in wages. In addition, there is a large indirect economic impact; those contractors and subcontractors will stay at hotels, going to restaurants, grocery and hardware stores."
According to a 2022 study by the Rocky Mountain Mechanical Contractors Association, for every $1 spent in construction, the state saw a total return of $2.2 in total output and a significant return in household income.
Conard added, "The storage component requires 24-7 monitoring and rapid response capabilities, so we need two to three people around the clock. So the number of hires is more than two or three. We also have a variety of administrative support positions and daily, weekly, and monthly reports that need to be prepared. We will have accounting needs, bookkeeping and monitoring. The administrative and maintenance will be full-time hires."
A press release from Korsail estimated 10 permanent jobs would be created in management and maintenance.
When asked when Korsail will file the needed applications with Alamosa County, Conard said, "We are hoping to wrap that up soon. We are finishing up a variety of new environmental studies at the site. We have big wetland studies, wildlife surveys, and avian studies. We hope to have our application done in November."
"The timeline is vast; engineering will happen Q1 next year, as civil plans, and it is always good to use local contractors because of their local knowledge. Construction work will ideally begin in Q4 2025, but there is some dynamics with weather, environmental studies, migration patterns, birds. We may not be able to kick-off in Q4 and may flip that to Q1 2026 and build throughout 2026,” according to Conard.
Korsail will need to comply with 1041 process procedures and file a preliminary application with Alamosa County, which is then reviewed by staff and our third-party technical reviewers in preparation for a final application submittal, which also gets reviewed for completeness, prior to scheduling the permit hearing before the county commissioners. They also have an opportunity to apply for a waiver to any of the requirements, as several don't apply to solar developments.
In Colorado, the 1041 process allows local governments to identify, designate, and regulate areas and activities of state interest through a permitting process.
Korsail is holding a jobs fair and meet-and-greet on Tuesday, Oct. 29, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Plachy Hall Field House on the campus of Adams State University in Alamosa.
When asked to elaborate on why Korsail is holding a jobs fair for positions that won't start until early 2026, Conard said, "We are looking for a number of folks for Q1 2025 for a lot of on-site work. We have been reaching out actively to local businesses. We have made a number of good connections, but we have a lot of roles to fill, and that's why we are having this event."