Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will consider extending permits for a potential solar farm north of Lawrence while a court injunction blocks progress on the facility’s construction.
Commissioners Patrick Kelly, Karen Willey and Shannon Reid gave unanimous approval to a conditional use permit for the Kansas Sky Energy Center in April 2024 after multiple hourslong meetings filled with divided public comment.
The permits will expire next month if commissioners don’t issue the extension. The commissioners who approved it, now joined by two additional commissioners, Gene Dorsey and Erica Anderson, will consider the extension request Wednesday.
The project, a 159-megawatt solar farm, would be built, owned and operated by Evergy with designs provided by Savion LLC, a division of Royal Dutch Shell based out of Kansas City. The companies plan to use 1,105 acres in Grant Township, north of Lawrence, for the project.
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Attorneys representing a group including Grant Township, the North Lawrence Improvement Association and more than a dozen plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the county in 2024, aiming to block the project.
In December of that year, Douglas County District Judge James McCabria granted an injunction that halted progress of the project while the lawsuit is still pending.
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Per county zoning regulations, the Kansas Sky Energy Center conditional use permit would expire two years after it was first granted since there has been no construction progress. Developers are asking for a one-year extension.
Matthew Gough, an attorney for the proposed facility, filed a request in December 2025 for commissioners to extend the permit for another year. At the time, McCabria had scheduled a bench trial for April 2026 that has since been pushed to November, with a pretrial conference set for September.
“Approval of this request would not result in any detriment to the County, while denial would cause undue harm to the Applicant by effectively terminating the project,” Gough wrote.
Tad and Margaret Kramar from Big Springs, Kansas, submitted written public comment to commissioners also urging them to vote for an extension.
“Denial of the extension would be a devastating blow to our efforts to reduce global warming and climate change, and to renewable energy in Kansas, and would encourage other Kansas counties to follow your lead and reject renewable energy projects,” they wrote.
Many opponents at past commission meetings said they support solar energy and believe it is important, but that the proposed location is not the right place for it.
Commissioners will consider the permit extension request during their meeting starting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 11 in the commission chamber of the historic courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.
See the full meeting agenda at this link. People may give public comment in person or virtually via Zoom; find the Zoom link on this page.
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August Rudisell/Lawrence TimesDouglas County commissioners to consider extending permits for potential solar farm north of Lawrence
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