What if we could put solar panels on top of stores instead of farmland? Plug-in and community solar banks could keep costs down for residents.
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Molly Anderson: This is WAMC’s Northeast Notebook. I’m Molly Anderson. Solar panels have become part of the Northeast's landscape. But while state leaders see them as critical toward meeting clean energy goals, they also inspire conspiracy theories, political campaigns and big feelings on both sides of the issue: so, are they a scourge or a solution?
Jennifer Facteau-Rabideau: I don't like the idea of having solar panels take over farmland.
Tony Skiffington: Well, it doesn't bother me where it is. To me, it's not a horrible sight.
Molly Anderson: Drive across upstate New York, and you can't miss them. Along roadsides and in open fields, solar panels are popping up, generating clean power for homes and businesses. Zach Matson, a reporter for the Adirondack Explorer, has covered the solar spread in northern New York over the last several years.
Zach Matson: Since the APA, the Adirondack Park Agency, approved its first solar permit in 2020, there have been 15 projects that have been approved across the park. You know, ranging from one megawatt, which is pretty small, you know, to five megawatts, which is also still relatively small, up to the largest one was a 40 megawatt site in Mayfield.
Molly Anderson: In order to reach its climate goals, New York state needs more solar. Governor Kathy Hochul has pushed to expand incentive programs to get more people to put up solar panels -- including a recent $10 million effort to integrate solar into active farmland. Zach reports most solar projects in the Adirondacks are being built on inactive farmland. According to the U.S. Solar Photovoltaic Database, 96 percent of solar projects are sited on so-called "greenfields" -- areas that may have once been "wild land, urbanized, cultivated, or reclaimed.'
Zach Matson: People in the Adirondacks feel like these developments might be despoiling views of beautiful landscapes, and they don't want to see something reflecting the sun when they're standing on a peak that they enjoy hiking to. So there are those types of more aesthetic concerns that people have.
Jennifer Facteau-Rabideau: I don't like the idea of having solar panels take over farmland and, you know, all the all the areas that they are.
Molly Anderson: Jennifer Facteau-Rabideau is the Clinton County Legislator for the Department of Conservation's Area 6, the western Adirondacks. She took the solar leap:
Jennifer Facteau-Rabideau: I do have solar panels at my house. If there was some sort of integration into every household, then perhaps that would offset some of what's going on in the grid.
Molly Anderson: But what if you don't live in a house? There are a couple of options. One is community solar, where homeowners can sign up to receive credits on their electric bill from a nearby solar project. There's also an effort to legalize "plug-in" solar. Think of small solar panels hanging out of your window or on your fire escape. State lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year, but it hasn't been signed yet by Governor Hochul. For utility-scale solar, Jennifer thinks putting panels on rooftops and parking lots makes more sense than farmland -- whether it's being actively cultivated or not.
Jennifer Facteau-Rabideau: Why shouldn't those have solar panels on them? What else are they doing? They're already there.
Molly Anderson: New York State Senator Jake Ashby is asking the same question. The Republican has introduced a bill that would incentivize businesses to put panels on their roofs -- not open spaces.
Jake Ashby: These solar fields, I don't think that they've really lived up to the expectations that people have put forward. A Walmart Supercenter can fit 2200 solar panels on the roof. So I think there's a lot of space and room for development here.
Molly Anderson: State Senator Ashby's legislation is currently stalled in committee. But he thinks the idea of giving breaks to commercial businesses will get more buy-in on rooftop solar.
Jake Ashby: We are not the originators of this, I think you'll see more popular energy policy throughout the country and particularly in neighboring states to New York. They incentivize, they don't mandate.
Molly Anderson: New York does have a program to provide incentives to contractors that install solar. As the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority puts it, the NY-Sun program allows contractors to take the incentive amount "right off the top" of the solar project's price tag. That total amount varies by project. But even with bipartisan efforts to help bring more solar online, large-scale solar panels have become a political lightning rod.
Peter Oberacker: We're here today to talk specifically about local control in our communities. Protecting our farm land and green spaces and defunding ORES. The Office of Renewable Energy Siting.
Molly Anderson: State Senator Peter Oberacker is a Republican running in New York's 19th district, a swing district that stretches from the Hudson Valley to the Finger Lakes. Blake Gendebein, a Democrat, is running in the 21st District, which includes much of Northern New York. Speaking with WAMC, the Lisbon dairy farmer took a middle-of-the-road stance on solar farms.
Blake Gendebein: I do think that putting panels on farmland so that the land underneath cannot be used is a mistake. If there are ways that we can farm underneath the panels with livestock or um, crops or, row crops or vegetables, then I would like to learn more about that, I think that's a good opportunity to get the best of both worlds.
Molly Anderson: Gendebein is referring to 'Agrivoltaics,' in other words, farming under solar panels. Rebekah and Josh Pierce graze sheep under solar arrays on their family farm in West Chazy, NY. WAMC's Pat Bradley visited their farm to get a closer look and found that the sheep actually prefer the greener, softer vegetation under the panels.
Josh Pierce: The sheep will naturally select for the better tasting forage, right? Like if you had the choice, you’re gonna eat dessert before you eat the main course, right?
Rebekah Pierce: There’s also the coverage piece, too. So, the sheep are getting the benefit of shade when it’s really hot out but then also protection from the rain and the wind.
Molly Anderson: Better vegetation leads to a longer grazing season, according to Rebekah. And a longer grazing season means…
Rebekah Pierce: That’s less time that we have to feed hay. And so that’s huge, because the more time that we don’t have to spend feeding hay, it saves us money, it’s better for the animal health, and we’re just able to utilize the land a little bit better.
Molly Anderson: Josh and Rebekah's sheep came before the solar panels did, but they weren't too far behind.
Josh Pierce: When we started this, we were very much just, we had a couple sheep as a hobby, we were both working full time jobs that had nothing to do with farming, but we really wanted to pursue having a farm as a sustainable business that I could then just do full time. And, the solar and taking the solar contracts is what’s made that possible.
Rebekah Pierce: It does look a little funky. I think everybody would rather drive by a farm field and see it untouched and farmed the way your grandparents farmed it 60, 70 years ago. But the reality is, those aren’t the times anymore.
Molly Anderson: And while Josh and Rebekah say solar contracts were their way into farming full-time, others are just trying to keep their businesses alive. Zach Matson pointed to one example ... a fifth-generation dairy farm in Mayfield, New York.
Zach Matson: The current brothers who own it were saying that this type of development is really the only way we can kind of preserve the farm in the way we had historically.
Molly Anderson: Northeast Notebook is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It was produced by me, Molly Anderson. Our Executive Producer is Lucas Willard. Our editor is Diane DeVore. Music by Eduardo Rivera. Consider subscribing to Northeast Notebook wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like the show, take a second to rate and review. It really does help others find us. Thanks for listening.
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