Kansas ranks among the sunniest states in the nation, and its famously flat landscape is ideal for vast rows of solar panels. Yet it ranks just 41^st for solar installations, raising the question: What’s the matter with Kansas?

The simple answer is that on the gusty Great Plains, wind energy gained an early foothold and dominated the renewable buildout. The wonkier explanation points to the state’s weak incentives — including a voluntary renewable energy portfolio standard and a limited net-metering rule — as well as pushback from residents who don’t want to live next to solar arrays. As a result, the state has few utility-scale solar installations.

The developer of a 270-megawatt project in the northwestern corner of Kansas thinks the Sunflower State’s solar industry is poised to bloom.

Last week, Doral Renewables announced a power-purchase agreement for its Lambs Draw Solar project in rural Decatur County, bordering Nebraska. The company declined to disclose its offtaker, but CEO Nick Cohen said, ​“It’s a major tech company with a big name that does a lot of data centers across the U.S.”

“This is a turning point,” Cohen said. ​“You’re going to see more and more solar in places like Kansas.” 

As recently as five years ago, he said, ​“it would have been wind.” But the best tracts of land for building turbines have already been developed.

The data indicates that a solar boom is indeed getting underway in Kansas — one in which Lambs Draw will be a key participant but far from the only one. In May, the state plugged in its first major project in the 189 MW Pixley Solar Energy installation, a big leap from the state’s second-biggest array of just 20 MW. Several even larger projects are expected to come online over the next few years, including a sprawling 510 MW installation slated to go live next December.

Construction hasn’t yet begun on Lambs Draw, but Cohen said the site is ​“shovel ready” and expects the project to benefit from safe-harbor rules that allow developers to lock in expiring federal investment tax credits by breaking ground early next year.

“What has happened is that solar has become the lowest levelized cost of energy of any new-build energy source out there,” Cohen said. ​“Solar has reached the tipping point where it’s the most economical and achievable energy solution in places like Kansas.”

Lambs Draw will span 4,000 acres leased from four landowners, though not all of it will host panels. Part of Doral Renewables’ strategy is to ​“use avoidance and what I call neighborly courtesy,” Cohen said. That means ​“getting more land than we need, then avoiding any sort of environmental features, whether it’s a habitat or wetlands.”

Then, he said, ​“we’ll ask neighbors, ​‘Is it OK if we put this here?’”

The local acceptance matters. At this point, solar development is ​“not really a question of state by state anymore,” said Pol Lezcano, the director of energy and renewables research at the real estate and consulting firm CBRE.

“It’s more like a county-by-county issue,” he said. 

The economic development agency in Decatur County lured Doral to the region in hopes of generating more tax income and finding a way for farmers to diversify revenue.

“They respect landowner rights as sacred,” Cohen said. ​“The officials in the county are also very professional and see this as a generational uplift for everyone. They’ve been incredibly friendly. They convinced us to come, and it worked.”

Part of Doral’s appeal was that Lambs Draw may, in fact, involve lambs. The company plans to incorporate agrivoltaics, with crops planted between rows of panels and livestock employed to graze and keep the grasses trimmed. Cohen said the company and its landlords haven’t yet decided what to plant.

Despite the acreage, Lambs Draw’s 270 MW is smaller than the Philadelphia-based Doral’s typical 500 MW project. The size, Cohen said, is limited by what the local power lines — which connect to the Southwest Power Pool grid system — can handle.

“Originally, we wanted it to be more, but ultimately the grid is a constraint,” he said. ​“It’s healthy at 270, and that’s where we’re going to keep it.” 

Nationwide, Doral has 400 MW of solar in operation, another gigawatt under construction, and more than 15 GW in the queue.

The company hasn’t yet selected the panels for Lambs Draw. But its 1.3 GW Mammoth Solar project currently underway in Indiana uses panels from manufacturers in Texas and India. Doral expects to make a similar deal for Lambs Draw, allowing the company to obtain panels quickly enough to access sunsetting federal tax credits and avoid new restrictions on imports from China.

“Solar is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for rural America, and places like northwestern Kansas have an opportunity to have a competitive advantage,” Cohen said. ​“They have something other people don’t have: flat, tillable farm fields with a strong grid connection.”