Developer to build solar filed on town farm

by Wiley Wood

The town-owned land around Norfolk’s transfer station has been lying unused since garbage stopped being dumped there in about 1990 and the landfill was covered over. Various plans for the resulting brownfield have been proposed in the decades since.

On Sept. 1, First Selectman Matt Riiska announced that the town had entered into an agreement with Lodestar Energy, an Avon-based developer of renewable energy projects, to build a solar field on the town farm.

The array of ground-mounted solar photovoltaic panels will occupy eight to 10 acres and generate three to four megawatts of electricity.

The town will lease the land to Lodestar, which will own and operate the equipment and sell the generated energy to Eversource. A portion of that revenue will go to Norfolk.

Lodestar will also pay the town a fee in lieu of taxes, scaled to the value of its equipment. 

“It’s not a lot of money,” says Riiska, describing the total annual returns to the town. “Maybe $42,000 a year.” The town will also receive a reduced rate for the power consumption at its two facilities with the highest electricity use, Botelle School and the town garage.

The effort to build a solar field on the town farm began a year ago as a project of the town’s Energy Advisory Committee. Energy consultant Kirt Mayland registered Norfolk’s interest in uploading electricity to the grid with Eversource at that time, ahead of other candidates including BNE Energy, whose permit for a 4.2 megawatt wind turbine on the Norfolk-Colebrook line is currently being contested.

The committee then sent a request for bids to 15 solar developers, and Lodestar came back with the best offer, according to Riiska. With the Board of Selectmen’s approval, a letter of intent was signed between the town and Lodestar Energy.

The project is still in its early stages. Lodestar has paid for a $25,000 engineering study that, among other things, will determine what enhancements Eversource must make to its transmission lines to handle the increased power.

Lodestar is expected to flesh out its plan in the next year. The Connecticut Siting Council will need to approve the project, as will Norfolk’s residents at a town meeting.

A bill that would raise the virtual net metering rate cap is now making the rounds in the state legislature, says Riiska. It would allow energy producers to charge higher rates for the power they sell to distribution companies