BENNINGTON — A solar developer is proposing three new arrays in Pownal, all located on former landfill sites.
Green Lantern Solar, which is based in Waterbury, and already has constructed a 500-kilowatt facility on Dean Road in North Pownal, proposed three new projects this week, each with a capacity to generate 150 kilowatts of power.
Ralph Meima, the director of development for Green Lantern, met with the town Selectboard and Sewer Commission on Thursday at the Pownal wastewater treatment plant, where one of the arrays would be located. The project would require an initial examination of the parcel to ensure that a solar facility is feasible, Meima said.
Green Lantern also is seeking permission to explore mounting solar arrays on two other sites, both former town landfills, near the current solid waste transfer station off Maple Grove Road.
The board referred all of the proposals to legal counsel for review.
Reached by phone on Friday, Meima said Green Lantern is seeking board permission to examine the sites as well as to explore short-term options for leasing the properties required for each array, about one acre apiece.
If the sites prove feasible, Green Lantern would begin the application process for state permitting and for qualifying the facilities for the state’s net-metering program, he said.
The process is “months away” from the submission of permit applications, he said. One of the unknown factors is whether the state’s net-metering formula will change as of July 1. The current formula contains financial incentives for developing former landfill sites.
Meima said the company would look for local municipal, school or nonprofit enterprises to purchase the power, which would be delivered at a discounted rate through Green Mountain Power.
Modest arrays on municipal-owned landfills or similar sites have become “a new area of activity” in Vermont, he said, and a specialty of Green Lantern.
The company is working with the towns of Newfane and Cambridge on similar proposals, and with the town of Wilmington on a project near a landfill. Green Lantern is exploring similar projects in Dover, Royalton and Starksboro. Overall, the company has developed 60 small to medium-size solar projects in 50 Vermont towns, Meima said.
The Dean Road facility which Green Lantern developed in 2016-17 is located on a four-acre section of a privately owned gravel yard at the end of the road, less than a mile south of the wastewater plant. Credits for the power generated go to the Mount Snow ski resort.
The parcel under consideration near the wastewater plant is a former Pownal Tanning Co. tanning sludge dump site, which was declared a federal Superfund site, and cleaned and capped in the 1990s. The site cleanup included razing the former factory building off Route 346. The land is located near the Hoosic River.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Waterbury company explores solar sites on landfills in Pownal.