Greenwood County Sets Final Vote on Ninety Six Solar Farm

GREENWOOD, S.C. — Greenwood County Council takes its last vote Tuesday, Nov. 17, on a 30-year tax arrangement for Fieldstone SC Solar, a $100 million solar project that Grenergy USA wants to build on farmland east of Ninety Six. A public hearing comes first, giving residents one more formal chance to speak before council acts on Ordinance 2026-32.

The vote follows a drop-in open house that Grenergy held Thursday evening in the old Ninety Six High School gym. Neighbors looked over site maps and construction schedules for the 74-megawatt plant, which went by the code name Project Apollo before the company was named.

Council Chairman Dayne Pruitt, who was there, said he pressed for that session and for the company to be identified at second reading so people would have time to learn about the plan. He said the feedback was mixed, with buffers that would hide the panels from view among the worries he heard.

Pruitt said solar zoning rules on their own leave the county little say over a project like this one. The fee-in-lieu agreement is where the county gains leverage, he said, because it can carry restrictions and clawbacks the company must meet. The draft includes added terms on setbacks, screening, noise, roads, environmental compliance and the hours crews may work.

Grenergy plans to develop about 460 acres of a tract that lies northeast of where Highway 96 meets Eddy Road, and to leave the remaining land in woods, fields and buffers. Its timeline has construction starting in spring 2028 and running about 20 months, with roughly 250 workers on site at the busiest point and the plant in commercial operation by December 2029. A new substation would tie into a transmission line that already crosses the area, so no new power line corridor would cut through neighboring land.

The deal would pay the county about $140,438 a year, plus other fixed fees, or roughly $4.2 million over three decades. Council members approved it unanimously on second reading at its Nov. 3 meeting, which was not final approval.

County Council meets at 5:30 p.m. in the American Veteran’s Auditorium at the Greenwood County Library. Ninety Six is about 10 miles east-southeast of Greenwood.

Filed under: Greenwood SC Business News