Cider Solar Rules: Greenbacker Kicks off Construction on 500-MW, $950M New York Solar Farm
Cider’s initial construction phase will focus on substantive civil and mechanical activities like placement of steel piling and racking for solar modules. All phases of construction are expected to be fully underway by mid-summer, including electrical wiring and installation of the high-voltage utility interconnection infrastructure.
Spread out across 2,500 acres on some 60 parcels of private land north of the Elba and Oakfield villages, Cider Solar will utilize ground-mounted PV panels on galvanized steel tracker racking structures, according to Hecate Energy. All phases of construction should be under way this summer, including the electrical writing and high-voltage utility interconnection infrastructure.
Greenbacker acquired the Cider Solar project from Hecate Energy in January. The earliest permits were decided several years ago, but the final permits to build arrived less than a month later from the New York Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Transmission.
Construction of Cider Solar Farm will employ hundreds of workers. It also should deliver more than $100 million in revenue for the Genesee County communities through property taxes, host agreements and tax benefits.
“Our union is pleased to provide local, highly skilled labor supporting Cider’s construction,” said Carpenter’s Local 276 Business Manager Chris Austin. “While this is an important moment for New York’s green energy ambitions, it is an even bigger indicator of the growing strength of our state’s specialized workforce—which is drawn chiefly from labor unions like ours—to support projects like Cider in the Empire State.”
The Cider Solar Farm also will incorporate agrivoltaics practices by hosting rotational sheep grazing on more than 300 acres of the project footprint.
Once completed Cider will be the largest of New York utility-scale solar projects to date. Overall, New York has more than 6.8 GW in solar PV capacity across 247,000 residential, community, industrial, commercial and utility-scale solar installations.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) ranks New York state 9th for total installed capacity, which accounts for nearly 6% of the total electricity resource mix. California, Texas, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina are the top five states for solar capacity as of 2024, according to the SEIA.