A small Connecticut town says solar farms are taking over its farmland

EAST WINDSOR — In the small town of East Windsor, on a quiet and serene stretch of road that travels past a row of tobacco sheds, a new kind of crop has begun to take hold.

Land in the town of just over 11,000 people has become a focus of solar developers over the last few years. And the community has projects producing nearly 26% of the total megawatts generated by solar arrays approved by the Connecticut Siting Council.

But some in the community aren’t happy about that. Jason Bowsza, the town’s first selectman, said developers have “consumed hundreds of acres of agricultural land” in his community. There are currently seven solar arrays active or in development in town that were approved by the council.

“That’s where these companies like to go,” Bowsza said. “They like large tracts of clear, flat land. That’s farming and agriculture. What’s happening is they’re consuming a tremendous amount of land that has historically been farmland.”

The largest of those developments — not only in the town but in the state — is the 485-acre Gravel Pit Solar. As its name suggests, the solar array owned by DESRI Holdings currently generating 120 megawatts was built on a combination of lands including an actual gravel pit as well as agricultural and tobacco farms. The Siting Council recently granted its developers a 150-acre expansion to the site, which is already among the largest in New England, that would generate an additional 30 megawatts of power. The town has said it will appeal that decision.

“Of course it’s excessive,” Bowsza said. “All you have to do is look at that aerial map. It’s in a section of town that’s historically been agriculture. The town has been vocal in our opposition about this and the Siting Council doesn’t care.”

Melanie Bachman, the executive director of the Siting Council, supplied a list of solar projects approved, denied or withdrawn but declined to comment further.

In nearby Simsbury, the town already has one large solar development called Tobacco Valley Solar which was opposed by some at the time of its approval. That solar array alone is generating nearly 4% of the total megawatts generated by Siting Council projects. A second project is currently in the works on Nod Road at the site of a former golf course. The Siting Council held a public hearing on that project on April 23.

Wendy Mackstutis, the town’s first selectman, wrote the Siting Council in opposition to the development with aesthetic concerns of how the solar panels would look from Heublein Tower and some wetlands and wildlife concerns, which she said developer Lodestar Energy has addressed by cutting the project from 19 acres to 17 acres. The property also has over $300,000 in unpaid taxes, according to Mackstutis.

“It’s a hard balance,” Mackstutis said. “I can’t say I’m against it from the perspective of what are the benefits for adding to the grid.”

The town would receive some financial benefits, Mackstutis said, like Lodestar paying the back taxes and an annual generation of $45,000 in taxes.

Mackstutis wasn’t the town’s first selectman when the Tobacco Valley Solar project went through, but she remembers it well. She doesn’t think the two projects are comparable.

“That was a much larger project that was in people’s backyards,” she said. “It was on farmland. I don’t see it as a true comparison. This is private land. We fought that one. This is a lot different.”

Tobacco Valley Solar has been in operation since 2019, and Mackstutis said her office doesn’t field complaints about it now.

“People that live out there, some members of our Board live out that way … they drive by there and it’s just there,” she said. “I haven’t heard anyone complain about it.”

It’s true, that when you look at the map of solar arrays approved by the state council, that they predominantly feature in parts of the state where you might expect them to be. Open land, possibly not being utilized the way it used to be, might be more available in those places.

Greenskies Clean Energy has had 12 solar projects approved by the Siting Council and has installed 197 total solar projects across the state through collaborations with municipalities.

Ryan Linares, their vice president of real estate, explained what they look for when trying to find land for solar developments.

“The first thing we’re looking for is the grid,” Linares said, adding that proximity and ease of connecting to the state grid is a must. “It gives you an idea of what the radius is where you can start looking for land.”

Environmental concerns are also taken into account, as are impacts to surrounding neighborhoods and the prospect of tree clearing, something he said Greenskies tries to avoid. Linares said most parcels of land that he comes across in Connecticut are actually rejected.

“We do a pretty significant vetting process,” he said. “Hundreds if not thousands of parcels of land come across my desk a year. We understand what the environmental risks might be to each site. We probably walk away from 90% of those opportunities because we vet them so thoroughly.”

If they do find a suitable spot, Greenskies then moves forward with making a deal to build on that land. In the majority of situations, Linares said, that doesn’t involve purchasing land, meaning ownership is retained by the current landholder.

“New Englanders do not like to sell their land,” Linares said. “It’s coveted real estate you want to keep in your family for generations. We completely respect that. 95% of our deals are ground leases. The type of land we’re leasing is a mixed bag of gravel pits, just vacant land, some cases farmland, land fills, parking lots for car ports.”

Instead, Linares thinks the deals they make with farmers are beneficial for both parties. For example, their East Windsor solar project is on land owned by Mulnite Farms, who for a long time has grown corn and shade tobacco in town.

“They’ve been treading water for decades to keep their land and keep their farm,” Linares said. “We come in with an opportunity where we’re not buying your land or putting anything permanent on your land.”

But Bowsza and some vocal East Windsor residents still think their community is doing more than other parts of the state.

“The state has a statewide renewable energy goal,” Bowsza said. “If that’s the state’s policy, every town should play a part in attempting that goal. It shouldn’t be put on one small town.”

Some parts of the state, like Fairfield County, have zero Siting Council-approved solar facilities.

Linares said that comes simply down to business and the market for land.

“Fairfield County is expensive,” Linares said. “It’s very rare to come across a 25-acre vacant parcel of land in Fairfield County.”

With some communities resistant to building solar, how will Connecticut reach its goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions statewide by 2050? Solar advocates said the state might need to get creative.

Mark Scully and Bernie Pelletier are the president and vice president of PACE, the People’s Action for Clean Energy CT.

“Could the state power the economy with clean energy like solar and offshore wind? Yes we can,” Scully said. “But we’re going to need a lot more solar.”

To get there, PACE suggests alternatives in addition to building on open land. They mapped out 8,000 potential parking lots throughout the state that could be the site of solar canopies during a 2024 study. Parking reform advocates have determined that nearly one third of land in 191 of the state’s districts are dedicated to parking, meaning the space is there. Scully suggests these solar canopies could be near cities, highways and airports. Among the most recent proposals made to the Siting Council include plans to build a solar carport on the employee parking lot at Bradley Airport.

Their parking lot study, Scully said, was prompted by some of the battles seen between communities and the Siting Council. 

“Are we making enough uses of rooftop solar and solar over parking lots?” Scully asks. “It seems that East Windsor is getting a disproportionate share of solar. We’re sensitive to their concerns. Solar canopies are clearly one way we could site a lot of solar. They tend to be more expensive. But they provide benefits of shading. We think there’s more potential for rooftop too.”

A spokesperson for DESRI Holdings, owner of Gravel Pit Solar in East Windsor, said those alternative types of solar projects are important but not as impactful as large-scale projects.

“These projects are typically smaller, more complex and more expensive to build on a per-unit basis, and they often face structural and interconnection constraints,” DESRI’s spokesperson said. “Utility-scale projects are essential because they are large enough to make a measurable impact and deliver electricity more affordably at scale.”

Jeff Hintzke, the vice president of policy and marketing for Greenskies, noted a few benefits to the state for having more solar arrays installed.

“There are the big picture things — decarbonization of the grid and our power sector is paramount if you believe in any kind of global warming forecast in the future. That’s Connecticut or anywhere else,” Hintzke said. “There are fundamental technical benefits on the grid by having more distributed generation rather than a couple of central power plants. Distributed resources like this can help stabilize the grid.”

Hintzke also said once a solar project is built, it has a very low impact on a community. In turn, he said Greenskies has committed $250 million in capital to the state through all of its solar projects.

“Assuming these things are working correctly, we probably visit a site two times a year,” he said. “It doesn’t generate impact on traffic or community services or schools. Fundamentally it’s a good way to conserve the land and allows families to keep it in their name in the long run and has no long-term impact on the land.”

Bowsza said he’d like to see some changes made to the way the Siting Council approves solar projects. He thinks some of the voting members should have experience managing municipalities and would like to see a cap installed that would give local control back once a community reaches a certain threshold of solar capacity.

“It gives municipalities some control whether or not these things go anywhere,” Bowsza said. “We don’t have that now. The legislature should take a hard look that they’re not going to allow anymore in East Windsor until other towns have done their share. We should be all done at this point.”

But local control gives solar advocates concern.

Scully, who lives in Simsbury and participated in the process during the Tobacco Valley Solar debate, said the Siting Council worked well.

“The Siting Council came to town, they did an in-person hearing, anyone who had a concern had an opportunity to speak,” Scully said. “We were heard and there were some changes made to the project. There’s an inherent tension if you let towns have the final say. These things essentially would never get built. The Siting Council is a bit of our protection against the tendency locally to block things for reasons that sometimes aren’t entirely admirable.”

Mackstutis said the Siting Council has been cooperative in Simsbury with the Nod Road proposal by extending a window for public comment and the developer has met with the town to discuss changes. The first selectman also said the town is going to request being an intervener in the process, which she said gives them a seat at the table.

“People could send in whatever comments they had,” she said. “They did grant us the public hearing. (The developer) met with us a couple times. They’ve made changes to try and make this more palatable.”

But Bowsza contends that the Siting Council has essentially been rubbing stamping solar in East Windsor, referencing projects like the recent expansion to Gravel Pit Solar.

“The Siting Council has declared open season siting these in East Windsor despite the town’s rejections to have any more here,” the first selectman said. “They don’t care what we have to say. I can evidence that by pointing to the recent expansion. The Siting Council is clearly accountable to nobody.”

But Linares said if it seems like the Siting Council is approving a high percentage of proposed solar developments, it’s likely because developers like Greenskies don’t propose plans they think will fail.

“It seems like a lot of people say the Siting Council is a rubber stamp for solar developers,” Linares said. “It couldn’t be further from the truth. By the time we vet a project and go through a year or two of due diligence and hundreds of thousands of dollars in environmental surveys … if the project hasn’t died by the time it gets to the Siting Council, it means we’re pretty comfortable in it.”

Scully and Pelletier, as much as they endorse solar arrays, said they do understand a town like East Windsor feeling like there’s not an equal share of projects in other communities.

Instead, Pelletier suggests a reframing. Instead of feeling like its a burden, a town could be proud of the solar that land in their town is producing.

“They’re saying this is a burden, they have a higher percentage than anybody else,” Pelletier said. “Or you can take that as a point of pride. If we reframe it … what does that rhetoric potentially turn into so that it’s positive in some way for residents?”

Pelletier said it’s important to remember that these solar projects are not a “forever thing.” They come with decommissioning plans. Sometimes, like in the case of the Tobacco Valley Solar project, that land will be deeded to the town after its solar usage is done. An Amazon distribution center being built on that land instead, Pelletier said, is not going away.

“If the town can take a long-term view and see solar as a 25-year crop — when you develop that land with houses, you’re never going back,” Scully said. “You can create optionality for the town. We’re going to plant solar, harvest it for 25 years and then we have options for the town.”