Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 3/22/2023
GRANVILLE — The town’s Planning Board will host public hearings at 7 p.m. on March 27 to take comments about three solar energy arrays proposed at 170 South Ln., 274 South Ln. and 123 Barnard Rd.
Representatives from BlueWave Solar, the renewable energy company contracted to build the arrays, and engineering consultant Weston & Sampson, will present the project and answer questions at the hearing being held in the Fuller Memorial Gymnasium in the Granville Village School building (Community Christian School), 409 Main Rd., Granville.
BlueWave is proposing 22 acres of solar panels and associated battery energy storage at the 88-acre parcel on Barnard Road; 21 acres of solar panels and batteries on the 53-acre lot at 170 South Ln.; and 24 acres of solar panels and batteries on the 122-acre property at 274 South Ln.
The owners of the properties are seeking state certification for these projects as Agricultural Solar Tariff Generation Units, or “dual-use solar.”
To meet the state guidelines, the property cannot interfere with the continued use of the land beneath the solar array canopy for agricultural purposes, according to information from the state’s Department of Energy Resources.
Essentially, that means the solar arrays are raised high enough off the ground to allow the land below to be used for agricultural purposes, such as raising crops or for grazing livestock. There will have to be enough clearance under the arrays to accommodate workers, farm machinery or grazing livestock.
The property owner, according to the Energy Department, must also work with a farm agronomist at UMass Amherst’s Agricultural Extension Services to insure the agricultural solar system is designed to meet the program guidelines.