PARK CITY, Utah — Summit County officials have long been passionate about providing renewable energy options for its residents, and this week, they hit a major milestone in hopes of making that dream a reality.

The county, along with 19 other government agencies in the state, received approval to move forward with proposals with potential developers when it comes to building renewable energy facilities.

Josh Craft with the nonprofit Utah Clean Energy thinks the program, which is in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Power, is what Utah needs right now.

“We have ambitious climate goals, sustainability goals, and with the Olympics coming in 2034, we want to be ready for those. This is a crucial program for that,” he said.

The program comes in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Power.

Emily Quinton is the sustainability director with the Summit County Health Department and shared that while Rocky Mountain Power has sustainable options, they’re not available to everyone. She says the goal is to provide renewable energy to anyone who wants it.

Going nuclear? Here’s where Utah’s first nuclear power plant may wind up:

“Communities would have, then, another decision of whether to actually adopt and bring that program to the community,” she explained. “Once a community did that, all the homes and businesses would be automatically enrolled, but they’d have the option to opt out.”

Many of the program details remain in the works, but Quinton has an idea of what kind of energy they might be working with.

“We imagine that we’ll probably receive bids for likely solar, wind, and geothermal,” she explained.

Despite being good news for the county, considering it’s been in talks for years, there may still be challenges with the project.

“There’s definitely some uncertainty with respect to national policy right now: tariffs and tax credits. But the reality is also that solar, wind and battery storage are the cheapest resources we have available to us,” said Craft.

Craft added that residents and small businesses are going to have to work together to bring these resources online once the time comes. Quinton echoed Craft and shared how another concern is affordability.

“We’ve tried to build in some additional bill credits, some enhanced communication to those customers, because we really want to make sure that everybody sees that they have that option to opt out if they decide that that is not a good choice for them,” she said.

However, Craft is confident that the price may not be as bad as residents think.

“I think that folks are going to want to know what he cost is going to be, and I think they’re going to be pleasantly surprised,” he assured.

Additional details, like a timeline of the project, will be released at a future date.

Full list of communities that are part of the Utah Renewable Communities:

• Coalville City
• Cottonwood Heights
• Emigration Canyon Township
• Francis City
• Grand County
• City of Holladay
• Kearns
• Midvale
• Millcreek
• Moab City
• Oakley City
• Ogden City
• Park City
• Salt Lake City
• Salt Lake County
• Summit County
• Town of Alta
• Town of Castle Valley
• Town of Springdale