Action Needed to Protect Our Farms and Forests from Large Scale Solar

Our state regulators are in the process of revising the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) program, the state program that decides what lands will get financial subsidies from the state for large scale ground-mounted solar. Large scale ground-mounted solar is defined as projects over 250 Kilowatts, or 0.25 Megawatts, which equals approximately 1 acre of land.

To reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Massachusetts needs to build out five to seven times as much solar energy as we have now. Unfortunately, our current pattern of solar development is causing unnecessary harm to nature. Since 2010, over 5,000 acres of natural and working lands have been destroyed for solar.

The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) is making finals decisions early this year about which lands get financial subsidies for solar. The proposed changes include excluding some areas from getting solar subsidies, and requiring money up front from the developers to "mitigate" the damage the projects create. These subsidies will heavily influence which types of land get built out for solar development. Background slides from the DOER's December 10th presentation are here.

The solar developers have been weighing in about where they want solar to go. We to tell DOER to get solar out of our forests and natural and working lands.