A large-scale proposed solar project in southern Vermont is drawing opposition from neighbors, the governor and the power company it wants to buy the power.
A study recently released by the developers, Ranger Solar, says electricity from the proposed 20-megawatt project on 155 acres in Ludlow is needed.
But some neighbors, the governor and the head of the state government agency that looks out for ratepayers say the project is too big. And Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility, says the power isn’t wanted or needed.
The study by the New York-based developers is required in order for the project to be considered by the Public Service Board, and buttresses the developer’s case for a project state officials have said probably has no place in Vermont.
A projected “capacity gap” in Green Mountain Power’s energy supply demonstrates a need for the project, according to the study, but Green Mountain Power’s own representatives say they don’t support it.
“According to [Green Mountain Power’s] most recent filings, they’re 300 megawatts short,” said Adam Cohen, president of Ranger Solar, the project’s developer. “That’s their own under-oath filings.”
Because Green Mountain Power will purchase 77 percent of the project’s electricity, this insufficiency shows a need for the project to move forward, the study states.
A Green Mountain Power representative said they’ve found sufficient energy to meet their needs without the project.
“We haven’t seen the study, but we have a fairly balanced long-term portfolio, and don’t see a fit for these projects,” said Kristin Carlson, Green Mountain Power’s media director and chief corporate spokesperson.
What Cohen mistakenly considers a capacity gap, Carlson said, actually results from an intentional strategy designed to take advantage of fluctuations in energy pricing. Green Mountain Power always leaves open portions of their supply portfolio so that the utility can purchase low-cost energy when opportunities arise, she said.
Cohen said his company’s project will provide electricity at lower rates than Green Mountain Power is getting it for elsewhere.
“They want to move toward solar, so our project fits right in line,” he said. “Instead of buying power from Canada or out of state, our power’s in state and providing jobs in the state at a rate lower than they’re filing for.”
Such large projects don’t support Green Mountain Power’s long-term supply strategy, Carlson said.
“We’re concerned about the cost, and we’re concerned about the scale, because we see, moving forward … a future where energy is used and generated closer to home, and we’re not interested in projects that double down on this big-grid mentality,” she said.
At 20 megawatts, the Coolidge Project would exceed by an order of magnitude the size of any other solar array in the state. A typical large project in the state generates just over two megawatts.
The Ludlow solar array will save ratepayers $4.5 million and will create 400 jobs, Cohen said.
Cohen also said the project fits with the landscape better than multiple smaller projects, and said the project enjoys strong support from the community where it is to be located.
Ludlow select board chair Howard Barton said that while the select board hasn’t reached an official stance on the project, there doesn’t appear to be much resistance among community members. At a recent informational meeting, only a handful of residents raised resistance to the proposal, he said.
“It used to be a big farm,” he said. “There’s a lot of fields and wooded area they’re going to clear out … but I don’t think it’s any different than what we go through with the housing developments and ski areas — they have to log quite a bit out of those, too.”
The chosen site seems to conceal the project reasonably well, Barton said, and it concentrates unsightly development in a single location.
“It sits out of the way quite a ways,” he said. “If you’re going to have a solar project, I’d rather have it that size in one area, rather than spread out all over through our community.”
The landowner of the property where the project is to be sited said he hasn’t heard many complaints about it.
At a recent town meeting on the project, only a handful spoke against it, “and some of them were just upset about the process that the town has — what say the town has in the project,” said Ludlow landowner and farmer Dan Moore.
“We’re not on a main road — we’re back in the country,” Moore said of his land. “People from town don’t have to drive by here for any reason, so it’s not going to be seen by very many people.
“It’s the perfect spot for it,” he said. “It’s right next to a substation, so it’s already an industrial view when you go by there.”
A neighbor to the property where the development will sit said the site is neither out-of-the-way nor appropriately sized.
“Nobody will see them from where they live, but everybody drives by it — it’s on a main artery,” said Ludlow resident Tom Potvin, who lives just up the road from the proposed development site.
“I’m not against solar altogether, but it’s got to be in the right spot,” he said.
“I think the biggest issue is, this is nice old farmland that’s been here for years, with nice old pastures and scenery,” Potvin said. “To do this huge development of solar panels … it’s an eyesore. It’s just too big.
“I can understand the energy, and that stuff, but like Shumlin said, it’s too big,” he said. “Everybody in town is up in arms about it.”
Gov. Peter Shumlin has in recent weeks disparaged large solar projects by out-of-state developers, both in general terms and in reference to Ranger Solar’s project specifically.
Such public comments are inappropriate for Shumlin to make against a company that has yet to file an application with the state, Cohen said.
“I think it’s disappointing that the governor was picking winners and losers before the process even started,” Cohen said. “It’s bad for business in the state if the governor’s coming out [against the project] before the process has even started.”
“The governor’s statements put energy jobs at risk,” Cohen said.
Despite Shumlin’s stated opposition to a solar project of this size, and to out-of-state solar developers, one member of his administration recently told opponents of a proposed large wind project in southern Vermont that they’d need to view the project in terms of the larger public good.
“My hope is that communities will find a way to evaluate projects and weigh in constructively on them. That said, you can’t always say, ‘Yes, I want this, but it should be somewhere else,’” Public Service Department Commissioner Chris Recchia said last month in Brattleboro. “At some point, if you want to be able to turn the light switch on at the wall, you’ve got to recognize that this is going to come from our own (energy-production) efforts.”
Recchia made his remarks in reference to a proposed 96.6-megawatt wind project in Windham.
Recchia also weighed in on the Ranger Solar project in September, saying that he finds it “hard to believe that a 20-megawatt project will find a place” that’s appropriate in Vermont.
Shumlin received $1,000 apiece for his re-election campaign from the two corporations responsible for the 96.6-megawatt wind project, New Hampshire-based Meadowsend Timberlands and multinational Iberdrola Renewables.
Based in Manhattan and with an office in Maine, Ranger Solar wants to build the Ludlow project as one of four 20-megawatt solar farms in the state, with others in Barton, Highgate and Sheldon, according to paperwork filed in August with the utility-regulating Vermont Public Service Board.
Ranger Solar started up in April, has raised $7 million from private investors to build solar, and is developing a 500-megawatt portfolio to build in the near term. The four planned projects in Vermont would be part of that New England portfolio.
Recchia did not respond to multiple calls for comment on this story.
