A Florida-based company plans to build a renewable energy farm with dozens of wind turbines and hundreds of acres of solar panels on a mix of private property and state trust land in a rural area of northern Arizona’s Coconino County.
Along with 61 turbines and up to 600 acres of solar panels, the Babbitt Ranch Energy Center planned by NextEra Energy Resources would include a battery storage facility, the Arizona Daily Sun reported.
The 42,670-acre (173-square kilometer) site is east of Valle, which is about halfway between Flagstaff and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, but project leader Wardah Abbasi said its structures would cover only about 1,000 acres (4 square kilometers) .
Babbitt Ranches would continue to run cattle in the area and the energy project’s turbines would be erected at least a half-mile (.8 kilometer) from the Arizona Trail, a hiking route,
NextEra expects to submit the project in the summer to the county Planning and Zoning Commission for approval, and construction could begin by the end of the year.
NextEra operates a windfarm north of Williams, which is 31 miles (49 kilometers) west of Flagstaff.