Wiscasset Planning Board

So far, so good for solar project

Tue, 09/01/2015 - 7:45pm

No sticking points emerged Monday night when the Wiscasset Planning Board heard the early details of a proposed solar farm project at Morris Farm. The meeting was a first step toward a site walk and then the board’s review of a plan.

Hans Albee, a solar designer for ReVision Energy, told the board that the firm would build the solar farm; as many as nine Central Maine Power customers would form a nonprofit association that would own, insure and maintain the equipment, including mowing underneath it.

“We don’t have any ownership stake in it once it’s built,” he said.

Morris Farm would still own the land and lease shares in the solar farm to the association’s members, according to Albee and ReVision Energy solar adviser James Manzer, interviewed earlier Monday.

Morris Farm is hoping to fill all the slots with CMP customers who have ties to Morris Farm, but any unfilled slots would likely be offered up first locally and then to any CMP customer, Albee said.

A lease would commonly run about 25 to 30 years, cost about $16,000 to $20,000 and earn the member a 30 percent tax credit, Albee said.

“It’s a long-term commitment on the part of (Morris Farm) and it’s a long-term commitment on the part of the association members,” he told the board. However, a member would be allowed to sell their membership, he said.

Responding to questions during Monday’s meeting, Albee said the firm hopes to install the solar farm this fall before the ground freezes; otherwise, it would be a spring 2016 project, he said.

So far, four $1,000 deposits have been made on shares in the farm, for three homes and a home-business, Manzer said Monday. The size of a share depends on that member’s electrical use. The early takers’ combined usage will comprise about 74 of the 132 solar panels needed to make the project work for the firm, he said.

Asked about the likelihood of meeting that threshold, Manzer said: “We’re pretty confident.”

Depending on members’ electrical use, the farm may have as many as 160 solar panels, Albee told the board.

The firm would install galvanized metal posts and two rows of fixed panels; the rows would be about 20 feet apart so that one doesn’t shade the other, he said. The solar farm would go near an existing access road on the Gardiner Road property, Albee said.

Albee agreed to a 4 p.m. Sept. 15 site walk with at least three planning board members. Torres told Albee he could work with him on the site plan.

“It’s going to be so visible, I’d just like the public to have a say in the process,” Torres said about the proposed project.

“We’re happy to go through the steps,” Albee said. He doesn’t want people to be surprised when it appears. “I want them to at least know what it is and why it’s there.”

That’s the board’s philosophy, Chairman Ray Soule said.

The project will also need CMP’s approval, Albee said.

He shared a chair with son Turner Albee, 3, throughout the discussion. Board member Al Cohen brought his Boston terrier Miss Lilly to the meeting. The dog made the rounds of the audience before the meeting started, then settled into a checkered blanket behind Cohen.