CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County is moving toward clean energy and lower electric bills with a first-in-the-state solar farm built on a portion of a former Brooklyn landfill.

Columbus-based IGS Solar will use about 17 acres of the closed 75-acre landfill to build a 4 megawatt (4 million watts) solar array.

Construction is set to begin about April 15 using solar panels and mounting systems built in Ohio.

The last shipments of more than 35,000 solar panels made by First Solar in Perrysburg have arrived.

The panels will be mounted on a racking system developed and manufactured by RBI Solar of Cincinnati for arrays built on landfills, which cannot be excavated. The RBI landfill racks are bolted to precast concrete slabs or ballasts. RBI will ship the hardware directly to the project when construction begins.

Power from the array should be flowing by mid-summer over a new transmission line Cleveland Public Power is building from the landfill to a nearby electric substation, said Mike Foley, county sustainability director.

The project not only moves the county toward clean energy, its success also may be key to the redevelopment of other landfills into solar farms.

Foley said there are about 70 old landfills in Cuyahoga County because many towns once had their own. Some are large enough for solar farms, providing that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency approves that use.

The cost of the project is about $10 million, of which the county will pay roughly $7.8 million.

The construction of the solar farm and new power line may be the most dramatic part of the project, but the negotiations and contract work that preceded the construction were far more complicated.

Here are the highlights:

IGS Solar has a 20-year lease with the City of Brooklyn to use the surface of the landfill.

IGS will own and maintain the solar farm for at least the first six years, said Reid Singer, IGS project coordinator.

After six years, the county will have the option to buy it at fair market value, said Foley.

Through a power purchase agreement, CPP will buy all of the power the solar farm produces -- which IGS estimates will be about 5 million kilowatt-hours per year, or enough for 500 homes. CPP will move the power into its grid, mixing it with conventionally generated power.

The county has negotiated a power purchase agreement to buy electricity from CPP for its 16 commercial buildings. About 20 to 25 percent of that electricity will be the clean solar power.

The county's initial contract with CPP is for 10 years at a fixed rate, said Foley, with options to renew for up to 25 years.

Provided the Lake Erie Energy Development Co. successfully completes its offshore six-turbine wind farm, the county will take a portion of its output, again delivered by CPP. Foley said the wind power will be more expensive, but the county sees it as an economic development project that could lead to much larger wind farms in the lake.

The county expects the solar farm to shave about $3 million from is power bills over the next 25 years, said Foley, because its price will not change.

IGS Solar hopes the Brooklyn solar farm will lead to other developments in Northeast Ohio. The company has 107 solar projects in operation or in development, with a combined capacity of 80 megawatts.