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Hodag Solar
Location: Rhinelander, WI
Size: 9.69MWp
The Hodag Solar Project is located in Oneida County in north-central Wisconsin near Rhinelander, where the mysterious and mischievous beast known as the Hodag roams the forests.
OneEnergy developed this project to serve local loads on a Wisconsin Public Service distribution line. The site is comprised of 20,400 bi-facial solar modules which generate energy from both direct incident irradiance on the front side and from indirect irradiance on the rear side of the panel. In winter, when the ground is often snow-covered, the bifacial panels can generate up to 30% more electricity than a typical mono facial solar module. The project produces enough energy to power over 2,000 average Wisconsin homes and is located on about 50 acres of land leased from a local family.
While the Hodag Solar Project is not the northernmost utility scale solar project in Wisconsin (OneEnergy’s Ore Dock Project is located in Ashland, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior), it is by far the largest, and is helping to prove that solar is a viable, productive, and economical energy source throughout the state.
“The Hodag Solar Project is the culmination of three years of hard work by OneEnergy Renewables and Wisconsin Public Service, not to mention Oneida County, our landowner partner and the broader community, as well as several construction contractors, including Interconnection Systems, Inc., Musson Brothers (Rhinelander), and Hillcrest Land Management (Osseo). A solar facility like Hodag Solar not only creates jobs for local contractors, but also produces large amounts of energy closer to its point of use, which increases reliability and helps reduce reliance on fossil fuels which Wisconsin imports from out of state,” said Eric Udelhofen, Director of Development at OneEnergy. He continued, “OneEnergy is proud to be a part of decentralizing Wisconsin’s energy generation, and helping Wisconsin strive toward greater energy independence.”
The system lifespan is expected to be 30 years or more because this site was designed with some of the highest-performing and longest-lifetime equipment available in the energy industry. Wisconsin Public Service acquired the Hodag Solar facility in 2022 as an effort to transition away from coal as a fuel source, and the project will serve their customers for decades to come.