In the course of exploring two applications for solar power developments at their Nov. 14 meeting, Vassalboro planning board members found what most of them consider an omission in the town’s new solar ordinance.
The application that raised the issue was from ReVision Energy for a small array on Route 32 (Main Street) to provide power to several apartment buildings in the same ownership (see the Oct. 12 issue of The Town Line, p. 3). Board members decided the project was not commercial, because no power will be sold.
Therefore it does not need board approval; and it does not need a decommissioning plan to describe how it will be dismantled and its components removed when its useful life ends.
The project is proposed to have 176 solar panels. Board members asked what will happen to them – and for that matter, what will happen to the hundreds of individual residential rooftop and ground-mounted solar panels already in place in Vassalboro.
Two planning board members have solar installations, one with 20 panels and one with 32. No one knew where no-longer-needed panels are supposed to go. Board members said the State of Maine has no disposal regulations.
Whether Vassalboro should amend its ordinance to add decommissioning provisions to non-commercial projects was left undecided. Several board members advised waiting for more examples, not acting on the basis of a single application.
The new application on the Nov. 14 agenda was a preliminary discussion of another project by ReVision Energy. It is intended to be commercial, with power sold to area residents (a community solar farm, or CSF) or to small businesses.
The site is on land owned by Eileen M. Flanagan, at 1026 Webber Pond Road, south of Vassalboro Community School. It is not far from a previously-approved solar project by SunVest that meeting participants said is under construction.
ReVision project developer Alex Roberts-Pierel described the property as an agricultural field along the road with a wooded area to the back boundary. The landowners want the solar development in the wooded area, away from the road and neighbors along the road.
To make space for a commercially viable operation Roberts-Pierel asked for a waiver of the 150-foot setback requirement from the rear boundary, reducing the setback to 50 feet. Board members consulted ordinance requirements for a waiver, leading to a discussion of what hardship the developer would suffer if it were denied and what alternatives were available (like reducing the size of the project or using part of the field).
Roberts-Pierel intends to ask the two abutting landowners for their input on the buffer. He pointed out that he cannot prepare detailed engineering plans until he knows whether the waiver is granted.
Preliminary plans, he said, call for using about five acres for fixed (non-tracking) solar panels 10 to 12 feet tall, enclosed in an agricultural-type fence the state Department of Environmental Protection recommends. The application will include a decommissioning plan and funding for it.
He said Vassalboro’s requirement for monitoring wells is unusual, and asked what ReVision was supposed to monitor for. Board members explained the requirement was a response to concerns about possible leaching from damaged panels (cracked by hail or fallen trees, for example).
The next regular Vassalboro planning board meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5.
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by Mary Grow
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