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An aerial view showing the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport and landing strip looking east over Lohr Road, taken on Feb. 6, 2013.

(Melanie Maxwell I The Ann Arbor News)

By this time next year, Ann Arbor could have one of the largest solar energy installations -- if not the largest -- in the entire state of Michigan.

City officials announced this week the city is looking to partner with DTE Energy on a roughly 10-acre, 1-megawatt solar farm out at the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport next year, with room to expand and add more solar panels in the future.

"I'm tremendously excited by it," said Mayor Christopher Taylor. "Ann Arbor very much wants to take action on renewable energy. We have a Climate Action Plan that I fully and earnestly support. This, I think, is a great step forward for us."

Taylor said it's his understanding that the airport solar farm would be the largest solar installation in Michigan when it's fully realized.

"And that's outstanding," he said.

The city-owned airport is located off Ellsworth Road between Lohr Road and State Street in Pittsfield Township, just south of the Ann Arbor city limits.

Matt Naud

Matt Naud, the city's environmental coordinator, said it's not a done deal yet, many details are still being worked out, and there are many steps to go. He said the City Council first needs to approve an agreement allowing engineering work to begin.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Michigan Department of Transportation also need to approve releasing airport property for non-airport use.

"The airport plan anticipated releasing this land, so this is likely," Naud said. "We are looking to release 40 acres on Lohr Road between the runways. This would allow this 10-acre project with options to look to other projects in the future."

Naud said engineering drawings need to be developed and go through Pittsfield Township's site plan approval process.

If all goes as planned, Naud said, it will be a great project. He said DTE would pay for the installation and pay the city for use of the land, and that would mean tens of thousands of dollars in annual revenue for the city.

The city currently allows some farming activities to occur on the land, but Naud indicated that brings in only a few thousand dollars a year for the city.

"I think it's a really good use of the property, and the FAA is supportive of solar," Naud said of a solar farm at the airport. "This goes a long way to meeting our renewable energy goals for the city and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions."

Naud stressed that the size of the project is not yet final, but the 10-acre, 1-megawatt project that's envisioned would be larger than any other solar array in the area.

"We're expecting it's going to be in the order of 1 megawatt, but it could go higher depending on how some of their other installations go," Naud said. "If they max out our site, it could very well be the largest DTE solar installation."

If it goes forward as a 1-megawatt project, that would be about the same as a solar array at the Ford Motor Co. headquarters in Dearborn.

"I'm tremendously excited by it," Mayor Christopher Taylor said of a solar farm at the Ann Arbor airport. "Ann Arbor very much wants to take action on renewable energy."

Ford and DTE announced plans in August to build a 1.038-megawatt solar array -- said to be the largest in Michigan -- providing Ford employees with 360 covered parking spaces and 30 charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles.

DTE also partnered with the University of Michigan to create a 430-kilowatt, 1,800-panel solar array on 2.4 acres along Plymouth Road in 2012.

Scott Simons, a DTE spokesman, said the solar array at the Ann Arbor airport would be a continuation of the utility company's Solar Currents program and would help DTE meet the state's renewable portfolio standard that calls for utility companies to get 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2015.

Simons said DTE is sitting at about 9.6 percent, just short of the goal. He said DTE has undertaken about 20 projects through its Solar Currents program, most of which are in the 400- to 500-kilowatt range. DTE's goal is getting up to 15 megawatts of renewable capacity from solar, and 950 megawatts altogether including wind energy.

"As far as DTE meeting that goal, 95 percent of our renewable portfolio is coming from wind, basically because wind is three to six times cheaper than solar," Simons said.

Solar panels installed on University of Michigan land along Plymouth Road in Ann Arbor, as seen in January 2013.

He said DTE wants to become more familiar with solar technology so it will know how to best utilize customers' rate dollars going forward.

The power from the solar farm at Ann Arbor's airport would go directly to the grid and would produce enough energy to power about 150 homes, Simons said.

He said it's a pretty good bet that the energy produced would be used in the area immediately surrounding the installation, including nearby homes.

Craig Hupy, Ann Arbor's public services area administrator, said city staff plans to bring contracts to the City Council for approval sometime after Jan. 1 to allow work on the airport solar farm project to begin moving forward.

Ryan Stanton covers the city beat for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at ryanstanton@mlive.com or 734-623-2529 or follow him on Twitter.