(A) Decommissioning of a facility shall include the removal of the following equipment/facilities utilized for operation of the facility and located on landowner property:
(1) Wind turbine towers and blades;
(2) Wind turbine generators;
(3) Wind turbine foundations (to a depth of five feet);
(4) Transformers;
(5) Collection/interconnection substation (components, cable, and steel foundations), provided, however, that electrical collection cables at a depth of five feet or greater may be left in place;
(6) Overhead collection system;
(7) Operations/maintenance buildings, spare parts buildings and substation/ switching gear buildings unless otherwise agreed to by the landowner;
(8) Access road(s) (unless landowner requests in writing that the access road is to remain);
(9) Operation, maintenance, yard/staging area unless otherwise agreed to by the landowner; and debris and litter generated by deconstruction and deconstruction crews;
(10) The facility owner shall, at its expense, complete decommissioning of a commercial wind energy facility 12 months after the end of the useful life of the facility;
(11) Prior to issuance of the county building permit, the facility owner shall have the approval of the Decommissioning Plan and required financial assurance.
(B) Financial assurance to cover the estimated costs of decommissioning of the commercial wind energy facility shall be at 100% of the cost estimate submitted and approved by the county. Financial assurance shall be made in the form of a surety or like bond and revaluated every four years for economic relevance. Said revaluation must be performed by an independent third party professional engineer licensed in the State of Illinois and provided for review by the county. Should the county find reason to disagree with the revaluation, the county shall retain the services of an additional State of Illinois Licensed Professional Engineer, at the cost of the facility owner. Based on any revaluation, the county may require changes in the level of financial assurance used to calculate the phased coverages. After all available decommissioning funds have been utilized the property owner of record is responsible for any remaining cost to complete the decommissioning plan.
(C) The financial assurance shall not release the surety from liability until the financial assurance is replaced. The salvage value of the facility may only be used to reduce the estimated costs of decommissioning in the plan if the county agrees that all interests in the salvage value are subordinate or have been subordinated to that of the county if abandonment occurs.
(D) The county shall require the revaluation of the estimated costs of decommissioning of any commercial wind energy facility following the fourth year of operation and every four years following, for the operational life of the facility.
(E) Upon abandonment, a period of 12 months following the facility's end of life usefulness, the county may take all appropriate actions for decommissioning, including, drawing upon the financial assurance.
(Res. LU-23-09, passed 5-31-2023)