Solano County is a lure for the energy sector. The county’s windswept hills are dotted with 421 commercial wind turbines, 63 natural gas wells, a handful of solar projects, and at least one proposed battery energy storage system, or BESS.
On Tuesday, Solano supervisors voted unanimously to catch up to the rapidly growing industry by advancing a measure to increase taxes on commercial wind energy and place new taxes on natural gas, solar and BESS companies, helping out with the county’s financial hardships in the process.
“Those entities come to our county and pillage our resources,” said District 5 Supervisor Mitch Mashburn after a presentation on the taxes from Solano County’s Department of Resource Management staffers.
“The ability to create a tax that does not impact families and those communities, that does impact those entities coming to our county to pillage our county’s resources for the betterment of their residents — I’m totally into that.”
Funds from the measure could bring up to $300,000 in additional revenue to the county’s general fund. Supervisors have until Aug. 4 to vote on placing the measure on the November ballot for all Solano County voters.
Broken down: Taxes for BESS would be $1 per megawatt-hour of battery storage each month. The natural gas tax would be 25¢ per 1,000 cubic feet — with 63 wells active, that could pull in $150,509 each year. And, the proposed increase for wind energy would bring the taxes from $0.00003 to $0.00007 per kilowatt-hour, which could amount to $313.12 in county revenue per turbine each year.
Catching up after 30 years
Taxes on wind turbines haven’t gone up since 1994. For the past 30-plus years, the county has lost out on hundreds of thousands in potential revenue. The increase accounts for those 30 years of inflation.
More than 100 turbines operated by Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) aren’t taxable by the county — a contentious topic, considering years of litigation between SMUD and Solano County.
“All those turbines out there that we aren’t allowed to tax that supply electricity for the Sacramento region, and our residents get no benefit — at a time when we have programs and citizens who are incredibly impacted … that low to middle-income group that are taxed into oblivion.
“Data centers, they’re looking to come our way. We need to be prepared if data centers come. They need to know this is how much its going to cost.”
Supervisor Wanda Williams
For Mashburn, the measure didn’t go far enough in taxing energy companies.
“Y’all brought this modest amount here? I don’t want modest,” he said, ultimately voting to move the staff’s presentation into a formal proposal.
District 3 Supervisor Wanda Williams brought up the need to consider data centers eyeing property in Solano County.
“Data centers, they’re looking to come our way,” said Williams. “We need to be prepared if data centers come. They need to know this is how much its going to cost.”
Williams approved the staff’s next step to draft the tax proposal, but added a recommendation to include data centers in the plan.
Solano County supervisors will review the proposal at their June 23 meeting.