Community members and project partners gathered on a cold cloudy snow packed morning last week (Wednesday, December 3, 2025) as the City of Delta hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on a new solar farm just south of Confluence Park.
The solar array located off of Kellogg Street will provide nearly 900 kilowatt hours of electricity for the city. Project partners include the City of Delta, Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska or MEAN and Sandhills Energy of Omaha, Nebraska.
Jake Pole, executive vice president of Sandhills Energy, talked about collaborative effort amongst the partners to bring cost effective solar energy to the Delta community.
Delta is one of a dozen or so municipalities in Nebraska, Colorado and Iowa where Sandhills Energy and Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska works to bring group utility scale pricing to smaller communities versus the more traditional one time project by a developer. The strategy makes solar more affordable for smaller municipalities like Delta.
Bruce Dahl, from MEAN, noted that the seeds of the Delta project were first planted in 2021 by his Nebraska company in an effort to bring sustainable energy to the community.
Delta City Manager Elyse Casselberry said the project will help the city to manage the cost of electricity for rate payers for years to come.
The solar array now fills the barren old Horse Country Arena, a place that many community members cherished from days gone by. The property had been shuttered by previous city councils but now has a new purpose. One main reason for the location is its easy access to the city’s power grid.
Adam Suppes, City of Delta Municipal Light & Power Manager, , spoke during the ribbon cutting ceremony. He praised the collaborative project with the two Nebraska companies making the project affordable.
The hope now is that the solar array on the west side of Delta will help keep energy costs level for the foreseeable future.
