(Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on the challenges and opportunities of solar- and wind-farm development in Rhode Island and the role of such projects in helping the state reach its renewable energy goals.)
Decades before Rhode Island started giving out grants to encourage renewable energy projects, Francis DiGregorio installed solar panels on his Exeter home.
DiGregorio, an architect who designed and built his own house on a wooded 5.5-acre property in Exeter, saw solar as a way to protect himself and his wallet against the tumultuous Middle Eastern politics of the 1970s and the rising price of oil.
Fast forward 50 years, and DiGregorio has expanded the array of photovoltaic panels and polycarbonate sheets on his house and garage to supply his home’s heat, hot water and electricity.
“People accuse me of being anti-solar, but I’ve been way ahead of the curve,” he said.
Yet he is at the forefront of opposition to utility-scale solar development in his town. In fact, his concern over an influx of commercial solar projects proposed on rural and residential-zoned land spurred his decision to run for and win a seat on the Exeter Town Council. Before jumping into politics, he had sued the town over its decision to rezone 15 lots – several of which are next to his property – to make it easier for renewable energy developer Green Development LLC to build a solar farm without requiring special-use permits.
The council has since replaced the ordinance with a new, stricter version that limits large-scale solar projects, spurring Green Development to sue the town for what company spokesman Bill Fischer described as “changing the rules of engagement” on solar development.
The complicated, nuanced legal battle is just one example of the larger controversy playing out across the state over the regulation of the commercial solar industry and siting of projects. Municipal leaders and residents from Exeter to Hopkinton and Tiverton say the influx of commercial solar farms on their town’s farmland and forestland diminishes their communities’ rural character.
State court records indicate Green Development is tied to at least nine open or unassigned civil cases involving disputes over solar arrays.
The company has filed five separate suits against various elected officials, town boards and administrators in Exeter. It is also involved in two cases in Coventry – one as a plaintiff and one as a defendant – as well as a case against National Grid related to the taxes on connecting projects to the grid. DiGregorio’s lawsuit against Exeter names Green Development as a defendant.
Green Development has also given notice to Exeter and Coventry of its intent to file lawsuits in federal court seeking $285 million in damages. Those charges had not been filed as of late February.
Environmental groups express concern over the clear-cutting of forests resulting from many commercial solar projects. Meanwhile, developers and state leaders argue that large-scale, rural solar farms are necessary for the state to reach its ambitious renewable energy goals – including Gov. Gina M. Raimondo’s recently signed executive order for the state to be 100% powered by renewable energy by 2030.
As solar development heats up, so too has the tension between these competing interests as they grapple with how best to plan for the state’s future with renewable energy.
“This is a critical issue that requires us to balance our need to preserve our forests and green spaces with the need to adopt more clean energy and reduce our carbon emissions,” Raimondo said in a statement responding to Providence Business News. “My environmental and energy teams are working together to approach these complex challenges in an open, responsible and thoughtful way.”
SOLAR SURGE
In the last decade, the state’s utility-scale, commercial solar industry has grown from virtually nonexistent in 2013 to more than 40 projects producing 7,970 megawatt hours of renewable energy monthly as of October 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The surge comes largely thanks to a host of state financial incentives for renewable energy development, including through its Renewable Energy Fund, which offers grants for up to 25%-30% of residential and commercial solar project costs.
National Grid Rhode Island also offers its own tariff-based program of incentives for excess energy produced by solar arrays, as well as a virtual net-metering program that allows municipalities, schools and other eligible customers to receive credit on their electricity bill for power generated through an off-site renewable energy system. A federal Investment Tax Credit gives residential and commercial solar project owners a tax deduction equal to 26% of the project cost.
These incentives don’t specify what kind of land can be developed for solar arrays, which means commercial developers have largely been driven to farms and forestland, rather than projects on landfills and parking lots that are more expensive and labor-intensive.
Christopher Kearns, the R.I. Office of Energy Resources interdepartmental manager, said where solar developments are built is a local zoning issue, not under the state’s jurisdiction.
Others say it shouldn’t be that way.
“We were caught … with our pants down,” DiGregorio said of residents and leaders of Exeter, which like many communities had few rules in place to govern solar farms when developers came knocking.
“To expect low-resourced cities and towns to take on a whole new area of development – it’s a big ask, and we’ve got state agencies whose mission is to think about energy development,” added Meg Kerr, senior policy director for the Audubon Society of Rhode Island.
Several cities and towns, including Exeter, now have adopted new or revised solar ordinances that prevent or set limits on large-scale solar arrays in residential and rural areas. Many also enacted temporary moratoriums on solar development to hold back the flood of incoming commercial solar projects while they refine or write an ordinance.
The Cranston City Council enacted a nine-month moratorium on new solar farms in January 2019, and later extended it until Jan. 31, 2020. Now the city’s revised ordinance essentially bans further commercial solar development, according to City Planner Jason Pezzullo.
“The days of doing solar farms in Cranston are over,” he said.
Pezzullo said the stricter ordinance was the result of changing public sentiment about solar projects. After Cranston gave the green light to five projects accounting for 50 megawatts of solar power since 2015 – only two have been completed and are connected to the grid, according to National Grid – residents began to voice opposition to the solar farms that were approved, saying the projects changed their residential neighborhoods.
For similar reasons, DiGregorio supports solar arrays, but only individual, residential projects or those in industrial and commercially zoned areas. He treasures Exeter’s rural land – evidenced by the remote property where he has chosen to live, quiet except for the sound of corralled ducks cooing in his yard.
[caption id="attachment_321200" align="alignleft" width="180"]
COMMERCIAL SOLAR
POWER IN R.I.
/ SOURCE: National Grid Rhode Island[/caption]
SHADES OF GREEN
Just as important, if not more so, than preserving the state’s rural character is its rich forests, which account for 368,373 acres, or 56% of the land area in the state, according to a recently published report from the Rhode Island Forest Conservation Advisory Committee and Rhode Island Tree Council.
But as a small state, the rural-urban balance is one that is fragile and easily upended, according to Scott Wolf, executive director of Grow Smart Rhode Island.
And the “solar gold rush,” as Wolf called it, has upset that precarious balance, as solar developers clear-cut trees to make way for solar panels. Neither OER nor National Grid could provide information on how many acres of forestland have been lost as a result of commercial solar farms, a fact Kerr called concerning.
From a carbon-emissions standpoint, research suggests solar panels are better for the environment than trees, according to Corey Lang, an associate professor in environmental and natural resource economics at the University of Rhode Island.
But to ignore the many other benefits of forests and green space misses the big picture, said Christopher Riely, a forester and conservationist with his own Providence consulting firm, Sweet Birch Consulting LLC.
Not only does removing trees eliminate the carbon-absorption benefits they provide, it also disrupts wildlife habitats, and negates other positive effects of trees on clean air and water. And then there’s the environmental costs associated with developing the land – increased stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces, removal of top soil, rock and ledge blasting, and other practices that prevent the land from returning to its original state when solar is no longer needed, Kerr said.
Forests also serve as economic drivers, responsible for $715 million and 4,800 jobs in 2016 in Rhode Island, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
To be clear, environmental advocates say, they support renewable energy. But they don’t want that green technology to mean sacrificing other important environmental assets in the fight against climate change.
“If we achieve [renewable energy] goals with a lot of collateral environmental damage, it’s not nearly as much of a plus for fighting climate change,” Wolf said. “We ought to be able to have a win-win for the environment instead of a win-lose.”
Groups such as Grow Smart RI and Audubon have advocated for policies and programs that incentivize commercial solar developers to build on already disturbed land – such as brownfields, gravel pits and parking lots.
Now the wheels are in motion to achieve this. Last year, OER rolled out $2 million in matching grants for solar projects on brownfields and carports. The R.I. Public Utilities Commission in February approved a request to add a financial incentive for solar canopies built over parking lots.
OER has also worked with municipalities and school districts eligible for National Grid’s virtual net-metering program to include in their requests for proposals specific requirements for solar projects on developed land, Kearns said.
But can solar farms on brownfields and parking lots create enough renewable energy to meet the governor’s ambitious goals?
OER has commissioned a study looking into just that, with results expected to be published this spring, Kearns said.
But Pezzullo is doubtful.
“Carports and rooftops are good, but even if you did 100,000 of them, it’s not going to equal what [Cranston] did in the last five years,” he said, referring to the 50 megawatts of energy generated through commercial-scale solar farms in the city.
[caption id="attachment_321201" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
SUPPLEMENTAL INCOME: Harvest Acres Farm owners Cindy and John Duncan, standing, with their son Daniel, in front of a solar array they partnered with Green Development to build on leased land at their farm in Richmond. The array helps make enough money to support their family and business. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
GOOD INTENTIONS
Pezzullo was disappointed to see Cranston limit future large-scale solar development.
“I thought we were doing something [to combat climate change] and now we’re not,” he said.
Fischer noted that Green Development has developed 55 megawatts of solar and wind energy throughout the state, with 49 more projects “in the pipeline.”
The contributions are important to helping the state achieve its renewable energy goals while growing its economy, Fischer said.
“We don’t have the luxury of waiting. We are very behind where we need to be as a state and as a country,” he added. “You are just not going to get the scale you need one rooftop at a time.”
Environmental concerns about clear-cutting for solar farms also aren’t accurate, according to Fischer. Several Green Development projects have been built or are under construction in areas with dead trees or those ravaged by gypsy moths – hardly the picture painted by environmentalists of healthy forests and carbon absorption, he said.
Pezzullo also noted that at least two of Cranston’s commercial solar farms were built on properties originally slated for other development – trees would have been cleared anyway, and without the generation of renewable energy.
As for loss of wildlife habitat, John Mancini, an attorney representing solar developer Anthony Delvicario, pointed to the animal corridors, new grasses and flowers his client has created in his projects to offset the loss of forest. Delvicario, principal of Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy IV LLC, has had a hand in about half a dozen solar arrays across the state, half of which were built on previously undisturbed land, Mancinci said.
One project in the works on Brayton Road in Tiverton that did require deforestation was scaled back from 21.4 megawatts to 14.2 megawatts, with a corresponding 10% reduction in the amount of trees cleared, based on concerns from the town Planning Board and Conservation Commission.
Mancini said the solar projects have been sited based on land availability and cost, among other factors.
“The goal is not to find unsuitable, pristine land to put solar fields on,” Mancini said. “We’re more than happy to develop on industrial and commercial land if it’s available and feasible.”
And then there are the benefits to the state’s farming community. Green Development has partnered with several farmers to lease land for solar arrays, making them eligible for additional state and federal grants.
Cindy Duncan, who owns Harvest Acres Farm in Richmond with her husband, John Duncan, called the 4.5-megawatt solar array Green Development built on leased land at the farm a blessing – the difference between making enough money to support her family and business, or not.
The family continues to use about 12-15 acres of the farm to grow vegetables and flowers but considers farming a secondary occupation to their mental health nonprofit, which started after their daughter died by suicide.
“It’s a great way to keep farming sustainable,” Cindy Duncan said. “Everybody deserves an income.”
Both Fischer and Pezzullo believe the opposition of commercial solar farms is a case of NIMBY – not in my backyard.
Kerr disagreed.
“When a major environmental organization spends hundreds of hours at meetings on solar siting, we’re not there because we’re coming from a place of NIMBYism,” she said.
Pezzullo also believes concerns voiced at Cranston public meetings represented a vocal minority of older residents, masking the viewpoints of younger, more environmentally progressive people who are less likely to attend municipal meetings.
But DiGregorio, who is 77, says it is just the opposite, at least in Exeter.
“Older generations are the ones who want to cash in on the purchase of their land [for development],” he said. “I’m the anomaly here.”
Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Lavin@PBN.com.
