If someone told Christina Heiniger several years ago that a solar farm was coming to her hometown of Trenton, she would have thought it was great news.
But after three solar farms were proposed in the roughly 28-square-mile town — including one project that looked to span 300 acres — she no longer supports them.
“It just seemed like enough was enough,” she said.
Heiniger and 20-plus other residents have formed a group opposing further local solar developments that are any larger than a home panel, and the town has been debating how to handle the issue for more than 18 months.
Community solar farms have multiplied across Maine since 2019, with support from the state government. They particularly flourished in 2024, when a record-breaking amount of solar capacity came online. The state’s solar capacity is projected to more than double in the next five years.
At the same time, towns such as Trenton are frightened by larger projects and continue to resist them, in some cases with increasing hostility, putting in moratoriums and ordinances to limit developments.
That resistance isn’t new, but it has more recently caused companies to give up trying to work in the state. According to one developer, the pushback has also become more targeted and ingrained — and it could challenge Maine as it tries to reach a goal of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2040.
When Gov. Janet Mills’ administration introduced legislation to encourage solar development during her first term, proposals multiplied. Some towns quickly passed moratoriums that gave them time to develop ordinances governing how and where the projects could be built.
In those years, concerns often centered on the disposal of the panels after their 20- to 30-year lifespans. Maine has limited landfill and recycling capacity, and the panels include some heavy metals, though producers say they don’t leak out of the panels.
These worries are still present in Trenton, as are questions about herbicide use on the lots, wildlife displacement, the necessity of clearcutting trees in a heavily forested town, resistance to development in residential areas, access to the site for local firefighters and concerns about contamination from “forever chemicals.”
Industry research has shown PFAS aren’t a concern in the panels, but some environmental groups still see it as a risk.
Now, there’s also deeper suspicion of the industry’s backers, its promises and a controversial energy billing program for solar. Some fear that international companies which own solar farms may leave towns high and dry when it’s time to decommission.
Similar fears have colored the response to various other big development projects around the state, from the Central Maine Power energy corridor that will carry Canadian hydropower through western Maine, to current and proposed fish farms along the coast, to offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine. On the national level, the Trump administration’s new head of the Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back regulations and climate change priorities.
Richard Jordan, a solar developer who’s been working with municipal permitting in Maine for decades, argued that it’s unrealistic to expect that all developers would be based in the state, given the economics around it. To protect themselves, towns can set a contract with the developer through project permit language, he said, and hold them responsible for decommissioning.
When the solar boom started, he recalled towns seeing five or more project applications pour in at once and responding with “good faith” moratoriums so they could develop ordinances.
But in recent years, it has started moving beyond that to local laws that are designed to block specific projects, according to Jordan. He’s also seen the debate grow more heated and likely to devolve into entrenched arguments.
“The passions on both sides have been a bit of a microcosm of every other issue,” he said. “There’s just a lot more knee-jerk skepticism than I ever remember here in Maine, about so many things.”
In Trenton, the solar question has been a “significant issue” since 2023, the year the 300-acre farm was proposed, Select Board Member Dan Monahan said. The town had an earlier ordinance in place, but it didn’t cap their size.
The idea of clearing forested land in town has been particularly upsetting to some of the opposition, who question whether it’s worth the climate benefits the panels promise. Developers counter that with research showing panels can offset more emissions than trees sequester.
“I think people started envisioning all the trees in town cut down and solar panels covering every inch of land,” Monahan said.
He’s gotten dozens of phone calls, seen big turnout at local meetings and noticed residents making yard signs. A citizen petition led to a pause on commercial solar development, a working group was formed and two sets of rules were eventually drafted.
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One, limiting solar projects to 30 acres, was voted down last week. Another option banning them entirely may be considered in May.
Residents have worked hard and tried to be civil, Heiniger said, but there’s been tension and questions about whether compromise is possible. While some residents oppose solar, others have supported it as long as it has limits. A third group has chafed at restrictions, feeling they infringe on the rights of individual land owners.
Other Mainers are weighing similar questions. Just this year, the Aroostook County town of Hersey pushed back on a 5,000-acre solar proposal; in the midcoast, the towns of Stockton Springs and Brooks are considering ordinances to limit them; and the state is developing a fee system for putting panels on valuable farmland.
Still, some towns have welcomed the solar arrays. Maine had the second-highest volume of community solar installations in the nation last year and broke its own record for installation.
“It’s all over the place,” said Jordan, the solar developer. “From one town to the next, you never know what you’re going to get. That’s frustrating, particularly for developers.”
He said he’s seen a significant number of developers leave the state over the last three years because they find it difficult to do business here. Maine law gives towns more local control than many other states, and there’s a tradition of resistance to outsiders and unfamiliar changes.
He said it’s easier to resist it than to find a middle-of-the-road solution, but thinks it’s possible in some places. Solar developers also note the state has tightened environmental regulations and wildlife requirements since 2019, and projects more than an acre in size go through detailed permitting processes from multiple agencies.
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But Jordan noted that “bad press” around solar projects has lingered with the public. Some of the frustration has concerned a policy called net energy billing, which allows owners of solar projects to get paid for the energy they send back into the grid, but which passes millions in costs along to electricity customers who don’t participate in community solar.
Looking ahead, Jordan expects the policies around net energy billing may change in Maine, resulting in a slowdown of community solar. But while other types of renewable energy could fill the void if they can attract more investment, he still sees solar as the most immediately doable.
The past five years have demonstrated that relationships matter in Maine, Jordan said, and he advises other developers to make connections locally before the first public hearing for a project.
“I think it’s a community that values its autonomy and its freedom to have the community be the way they would like it to be,” Heiniger said.