A Solar Milestone, As Future Projects Are Questioned

Southampton Town’s new 11,000-panel solar array atop the capped North Sea Landfill is a recent milestone in the reuse of former dumping sites on the East End, and its ribbon-cutting this spring caps an era of growing acceptance of solar arrays to power Long Island’s electric grid.

Pictured Above: The new solar array atop the capped North Sea Landfill.

Other projects on the East End are currently going through planning review, but they are facing more criticism, in part due to the current public backlash against Battery Energy Storage Systems, which can be used in conjunction with solar arrays to store excess power.

Southold Town’s Planning Board is in the final phase of review of a proposed 3-megawatt, 7,900-panel solar farm atop its capped landfill in Cutchogue, which has drawn out detractors who organized in response to a proposal more than two years ago for a BESS facility not far from the landfill, on Oregon Road.

A community solar project proposed by the Village of Westhampton Beach on village-owned land outside the village, in Quiogue, has also faced harsh criticism from neighbors, who have sued the village to stop the project.

In the meantime, Southampton Town has been signing up LIPA ratepayers for its community solar program, created as part of Kearsage Energy’s 20-year lease of the property atop the capped landfill. It’s the first such municipally-run program on Long Island.

Lynn Arthur, a member of Southampton Town’s Sustainability Committee, worked with former Deputy Town Supervisor Frank Zappone to bring this community solar project to Southampton. 

Ms. Arthur is the founder of the non-profit Peak Power LI, which helps with public engagement for renewable energy projects, and she was contracted by the town to sign up residents for the community solar program, which will provide about an eight percent annual electric bill credit to residents, prioritizing low-income families.

Participants in a community solar program cannot already have solar panels on their houses.

Ms. Arthur said it took about six weeks to sign up more than 550 people for the program, giving priority to people whose incomes are below a certain threshold or who live in state-designated disadvantaged communities. About 70 people who live in the Riverwoods 55+ mobile home park in Riverside are among the new subscribers.

She added that subscribers came from all over town, from Sagaponack to Flanders, Tuckahoe, Quogue and within incorporated villages.

“I’m really proud of that,” said Ms. Arthur of being able to help residents to lower their electric bills. “It’s so nice to see something really tangible.”

Litigation over Westhampton Beach’s Quiogue Proposal

But as ratepayers begin to see reduced electric bills in Southampton’s program, more recent proposals have seen public backlash. 

The Village of Westhampton Beach’s solar project, on 11 acres of a 13-acre former municipal yard on South Country Road in Quiogue, would include more than 4,000 solar panels built through a lease agreement with the solar developer CVE North America, which also has a lease with Riverhead Town to build an array atop that town’s capped Youngs Avenue landfill. 

The Quiogue project is also slated to incorporate a community solar program, providing a reduction in electric bills to about 400 people. But that factor doesn’t impress neighbors of the property, who were harshly critical of the project at a March 6 public hearing held by the village in response to allegations in the neighbors’ lawsuit that the village hadn’t provided adequate opportunity for the public to comment on it.

Village Attorney Stephen Angel told the crowd before the hearing that the village board would not respond to their questions and comments, due to the litigation. The parties are due back in court in June.

Steven Engelmann, the Senior Business Developer for CVE North America, said the developers are working through the legal process to submit their final site plan, which will also be the subject of a public hearing before the Southampton Town Planning Board. The property is owned by the village but it is not within the village, and it is subject to Southampton town code.

“We are a community solar energy developer,” he said. “It benefits folks who can’t build solar at their home or business… We believe it meets the Southampton Town Zoning Code and it is our full intent to work with the community.”

But Kara Bak, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who lives on neighboring Jennifer’s Path and is also Southampton Town’s Director of Housing & Community Development, said the village had not prepared an environmental review of the project, which would involve the removal of trees and could cut off migratory routes for wildlife.

“Low carbon sources don’t add to the problems of climate change, but they are industrial sites,” she said, adding that they affect the community, “especially when something goes wrong.”

She said she’s also concerned about the possibility of fires, especially if a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) is included in the project.

While the terms of the lease allow a BESS to be built as part of the project, the current site plan before the Southampton Town Planning Board does not include a BESS.

Ms. Bak added that her neighbors include a nurse, a member of the Air Force, a teacher, a volunteer firefighter, a lifeguard and small business owners and town and village employees, who want to be able to enjoy their homes in piece.

“They are the very people who make the village a better place to live, work and raise a family,” she said. “We may not be able to vote for you, but we serve this community every day.”

Neighbor Leila Masci, who recently retired as a counselor at the Seafield Center, said she was planning on enjoying her retirement in her home on Jennifer’s Path, which is directly behind where the transformers for the project will be. She questioned why the village doesn’t put solar panels on its buildings. 

Southold Solar Before Planning Board

Over in Southold, the town Planning Board closed its public hearing on April 7 on Summit Ridge Energy’s proposed solar array atop the town’s capped landfill.

Southold had been looking for more than a decade to build a solar array atop the landfill. A 2015 deal with the now-defunct firm SunEdison to build a 2 megawatt array there fell through, and after wrangling out of that contract after SunEdison’s bankruptcy in 2016, Southold again issued a request for proposals in 2020, ultimately signing an agreement with Summit Ridge.

The agreement includes lease payments to the town of $8,000 per year while the project is under development and construction and $335,000 per year during its operations and decommissioning periods. The operations period would be 20 years.

Summit Ridge’s initial proposal had included a BESS, but after Southold Town issued a moratorium on BESS development in 2023, Summit Ridge submitted plans without battery storage. Southold extended that moratorium for a third year on April 15.

Alex O’Mara, of Friends of Oregon Road, a group organized to fight the BESS on Oregon Road, said at March 10 and April 7 hearings on the proposal that her group believes the array is “a Trojan horse” to eventually put a BESS at the landfill. 

“Where will the solar energy be stored?” She asked, adding that she believes experts consulted by the town’s BESS task force, which drafted a report in the first year of the moratorium detailing potential changes to the town code, “were actually paid by the BESS industry.”

“The energy will not be stored. It will be fed directly into the LIPA grid,” said Summit Ridge Energy representative Jeremy Karpf, adding that his firm has “no intention to put it back.” 

“The first homes on the grid would be powered by it, so the neighbors would be the ones who would be receiving the electricity from the project,” he said.

Johnathan Kongoletos, who served as the volunteer chair of the town’s BESS Task Force, said that no one had submitted comments on his group’s extensive report, finished in the spring of 2024, but he anticipates the town board will act on the report this year.

Barbara Taylor, who has lived on Route 48 near the landfill for 40 years, said she’s “concerned that history may repeat itself.”

She said after a hurricane nearly a century ago, the town had “nowhere else to put the landfill than in back of us. We lived with it for several years. Southold Town is quite big. You mean to tell me you can’t find anyplace else to put solar panels than our backyard?”

Mr. Karpf said the capped landfill is what’s known as a “brownfield,” a historically polluted site that is limited in its redevelopment options other than solar energy.

Both Ms. Taylor and Ms. O’Mara questioned what will happen if the developer at some point walks away from the project, and Ms. O’Mara questioned who would pay to repair the landfill cap if it is damaged by the panels.

Her concern about repairing the cap was shared by Town Solid Waste Coordinator Nick Krupski.

Planning Board member Jim Rich said the board would require a “discontinuation bond from the installer to address what happens as this reaches the end of its life cycle.”

Summit Ridge representatives said the panels would be placed atop concrete or stone ballasts that would not penetrate the cap, and their plans must be coordinated with the state Environmental Protection Agency to ensure the integrity of the cap.

“The last administration, the Green New Deal, subsidized putting all these solar panels in,” said Planning Board Chairman Don Wilcinski. “What concerns me is the longevity of the panels themselves. Who discards them? Where do they go? There are tons of companies in solar now, but my feeling is the government subsidies are running out. Are these companies going to be around if these fail?”

“I couldn’t think of a better spot for a solar project like this. I think it’s long overdue,” said Tom Stevenson of Orient. “It’s on top of a whole bunch of garbage. I don’t know how it could make it worse.”

The Southold Planning Board could vote on the application as soon as its May 5 meeting.

— BHY

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