Consumers Energy buys hundreds of acres of farmland once used for cherries, other crops

OCEANA COUNTY, MI – A longstanding household farm that auctioned off over 900 acres of farmland has offered most of it to Customers Power.

The Jackson-based utility gained buy rights to 800 acres in Hart, beforehand owned by Todd Greiner Farms, in an public sale hosted this previous weekend, Tracy Wimmer, spokesperson with Customers Power, confirmed.

Customers bought the land for $5.6 million, Wimmer stated. The longer term use of the land was not disclosed.

“At this point, we’re still determining potential future uses,” Wimmer stated. “Once we have more information and details about that and figure what makes sense with the land, that’s when we’ll move forward.”

Todd Greiner Farms Packing final weekend auctioned off over 900 acres of farmland that had been used to develop candy and tart cherries, apples and greens. The public sale was a part of the 30-year-old farm’s transition to advertising and promoting produce from different Michigan growers.

Customers may use the land for large-scale photo voltaic infrastructure, because the utility is constructing or has plans to construct quite a few photo voltaic farms in Kent, Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Jackson and Calhoun counties.

The utility is establishing a 1,900-acre photo voltaic farm at Muskegon County’s wastewater plant in Moorland Township. It’s anticipated to provide 250 megawatts of solar energy, sufficient vitality to energy about 40,000 properties, when it’s totally operational in 2026.

Customers has touted a long-term objective of getting 8,000 megawatts of photo voltaic vitality in its sources by 2040.

In 2020, about 11% of the utility’s consumption was renewable vitality, which incorporates photo voltaic and wind. By 2040, the objective is to have renewables be the first vitality supply at 63%.

Along with the true property public sale, a second public sale was held that includes a big lineup of farm tools, together with over 30 tractors and greater than 30 vans and trailers.

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