MONTAGUE — As the state encourages photo voltaic to meet its mandated Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2025 and 2030, the city will seemingly see a significant growth of solar energy and proposals from builders within the coming years.
With this in thoughts, the Montague Energy Committee and Solar Planning Committee held a digital discussion board Wednesday evening, the place residents and enterprise house owners had been invited to supply enter and overview doable methods to the draft Community Solar Action Plan of the city. used as a place to begin for photo voltaic planning. River Strong, affiliate director of UMass Clean Energy Extension, offered a lot of the data on the discussion board hosted by Sally Pick, co-chair of the Montague Energy Committee.
“Solar energy performs an necessary position as one in every of our state’s some ways to fulfill our mandated 2050 net-zero local weather emissions targets. It not solely gives clear, dependable electrical energy, but additionally native races,†stated Pick. “In addition, it has the potential to scale back the power burden of low-income residents who pay the best proportion of their earnings for utility prices.â€
The complete draft plan consists of prompt places which can be finest for photo voltaic installations based mostly on what residents need and potential websites for bigger photo voltaic arrays. It was created by Victoria Haskins and Caroline Williams, undergraduates on the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Montague reportedly has many multi-family housing models which can be significantly good places for photo voltaic, as they’ve massive roofs. With Montague being a historic farming neighborhood, there are additionally some residential properties with massive barns that may accommodate photo voltaic panels.
Because Montague has a lot land mapped as crucial habitat or as completely protected, it’s tough to establish massive parcels appropriate for large-scale photo voltaic improvement. However, sections of Taylor Hill Road could also be of curiosity for photo voltaic improvement if the grid is in-built that space, and photo voltaic improvement south of Turnpike Road could also be expanded.
Strong defined that Montague has sufficient photo voltaic already put in and can seemingly see extra as a result of value element falling quickly in recent times. He talked about the federal Inflation Reduction Act signed into regulation by President Joe Biden that enables non-taxable entities to make the most of 30% federal tax credit. There can also be the potential for new financing for photo voltaic from the state’s new inexperienced financial institution, the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank, which is the primary of its sort within the United States.
Strong stated Montague hosts roughly 14.1 megawatts of put in photo voltaic and will get almost 20% of the neighborhood’s electrical energy wants (90,000 megawatt hours) from its photo voltaic power. According to his info, the entire electrical energy wants of the Montague neighborhood will most likely double as extra electrical heating programs are put in and electrical autos are bought.
There is a invoice within the state House of Representatives that goals to broaden entry to a contemporary grid. Adoption would restrict the period of time electrical utilities are allowed to interconnect photo voltaic and power storage and set up a value framework for grid upgrades with uniform charges based mostly on photo voltaic capability. It may even create a everlasting clear power ombudsperson to advertise enhancements in interconnection processes.
Strong studies that Montague has about 290 residential programs, totaling 2 megawatts. UMass Clean Energy Extension performed a survey and 88% of respondents indicated that they felt “positive†or “very positive†about residential photo voltaic on roofs and 78% in residential yards. Also, 53% of these presently with out photo voltaic are considering a photo voltaic array. Average family electrical energy use is anticipated to double by 2050, and roughly 68% of residential properties seemingly have the potential for house photo voltaic.
While there may be normal help in Montague for photo voltaic improvement close to main highways, there may be sturdy opposition to improvement on forests and most pure land varieties.
“To scale back the potential affect that photo voltaic can have on pure soils, it’s important that photo voltaic is mixed with sturdy efforts to scale back power use by way of weatherization of present buildings and extra power in power new development,†stated Pick. “This might decrease the state’s anticipated enhance in electrical energy wants and photo voltaic wants as we transfer away from fossil gasoline heating and transportation to extra power environment friendly heating and cooling utilizing geothermal and different warmth pumps and drive extra electrical autos. â€
Montague’s Community Solar Action Plan may be seen at tinyurl.com/MontagueSolarPlan.
Reach Domenic Poli at: [email protected] or 413-930-4120.
