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For more than five years, Stockton Springs has leased a set of solar panels that now sit on top of the town’s garage, and earlier this week, the Select Board put a question to its residents: Should it spend up to $47,000 to purchase the panels?
Select Board members supported the purchase, which would reportedly have saved the town a total of $115,000 over the next 22 years.
But when it came time to vote, a majority of the more than 100 residents who attended the special town meeting threw up their hands to reject the measure.
Numerous attendees questioned whether it was a worthwhile investment given that the panels would lose their power-generating capacity over time. One speaker, who did not identify herself, said that she was OK with rooftop solar, but was more concerned with another project, a solar farm that a developer has expressed interest in pursuing on private rural land off of Blueberry Lane.
“I have panels on my roof, so I’m good with panels on roofs,” the woman said. “But I think because of the concern that we have of a solar farm going on Blueberry Lane, it probably would be better if we all decide what kind of community we want. Do we want a town that’s full of solar panels on agricultural land, or just on roofs?”
That question is one that many communities across Maine are now asking, including several on the midcoast. Do they want to allow large solar panels to be installed that would produce renewable energy and bring other economic benefits? Or are they more concerned with preserving that land for farms, housing or other purposes?
There has not been a unified response. While some towns have been moving toward limiting the facilities, others have welcomed them given the investment and other benefits they could bring.
In Stockton Springs, officials are now planning to ask residents at the regular town meeting in June whether to temporarily ban commercial solar projects, after some residents have spoken out against the possibility of one in town.
Such a moratorium would give the town time to create a formal ordinance with limits on commercial solar developments. However, it’s possible a commercial solar project could be proposed before the town considers a moratorium, according to interim Town Manager John Bellino.
About a half hour away in Brooks, officials already have passed multiple moratoriums on solar power facilities and put one set of rules to voters, who rejected them last summer. Officials have now drafted a different set of limits on solar projects that are getting a hearing on March 4.
They have done all of that after a developer proposed a controversial solar farm that would cover more than 20 acres on Route 7 and generate enough electricity for more than 1,000 homes.
Among other things, the latest set of draft rules would create a permitting system for bigger solar projects, limit the height of their solar arrays to 16 feet, require that they be setback at least 200 feet from the nearest property boundaries and require that developers have decommissioning plans.
Chris Quimby, the chair of the town’s Planning Board, said that a number of residents shared their concern with commercial solar projects in response to a public survey. Among the concerns they raised were that solar panels are unsightly and cause glare, that they could reduce nearby property values and that they could leak chemicals into the environment.
“People in town who took the survey definitely don’t want to see these large scale solar farms with their eyeballs,” Quimby said.
At the same time, the town does not plan to ban commercial solar farms outright, according to Quimby.
But other communities have been more willing to embrace commercial solar projects, whether for environmental or economic benefits.
In the Knox County town of Warren, a developer could break ground later this year on a much larger solar farm after the Planning Board approved it in 2022 and residents recently supported the creation of a tax-increment finance district related to the project, which could generate enough power for more than 10,000 homes.
While residents have raised a number of questions about the project, it has not caused a large outcry, according to Code Enforcement Officer Steven Day.
“Since the town did vote to approve it, I think that speaks to what people’s feelings were towards it,” he said.