Solar power company appeals to south Alabama residents: ‘We double crop’
A debate Wednesday night between Baldwin County residents and a company building a 4,500-acre solar farm remained largely civil until a late question-and-answer session.
Hours into the meeting, tensions boiled over as some attendees got into a verbal altercation. One woman had to be escorted out.
About 200 people showed up to the civic center in Bay Minette to discuss the proposed solar farm in Stockton, which has become a lightning rod in Baldwin County. It also sparked legislation to halt the project — though it is unlikely to pass.
“Your bill is not going up because of solar,” said Reagan Farr, CEO of Silicon Ranch, during the town hall. “We’re not sneaking around.”
The town hall was organized by Silicon Ranch, the Nashville-based company that will build and own the solar farm. The company sought to answer questions from residents and address some of their concerns and rumors that have spread about the project.
Silicon Ranch has a power purchase agreement with Alabama Power, which will connect it to their power grid. The solar farm is meant to offset the energy demand from Meta’s forthcoming $1.5 billion data center in Montgomery.
The solar panels are expected to generate 260 megawatts and be operational by the end of 2028, according to records on file with the Alabama Public Service Commission.
During the meeting, Farr said the project would create around 160 temporary construction jobs, but just a handful of permanent jobs.
But before the event could even begin, about 75 Baldwin County residents — many carrying signs opposing the solar farm — showed up at the civic center to protest. Former U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl, who is running for Alabama’s first congressional district, joined the protest, as did other candidates for elected office in Baldwin County and statewide.
“From what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen so far, I can’t support it,” Carl told AL.com during the protest. “Now, it’s more of a state issue, not a federal issue. I still want to get involved with it as an individual. That’s my wetlands we’re talking about up there, as much as it is anyone else’s.”
Stockton, a town of just 350 to 500 people, is home to wetlands that are part of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, one of the most biodiverse regions in the United States. It has been dubbed “America’s Amazon.”
“We’re really concerned about the ecosystem and the environment,” said Meagan Fowler, president of Friends of the Tensaw River and a lead organizer against the solar farm prior to the meeting. “I have solar on top of my golf cart, I want solar on top of my house, I think solar makes sense in certain places… the issue here is we’re talking about industrial areas that are the size of major airports, that are on forested lands.”
Residents, who say they were blindsided by the proposed solar farm, argue that building the solar farm in Stockton poses a risk to the delta. They also say the solar farm would disrupt their quiet, rural way of life.
Silicon Ranch officials have said that 2,500 acres of the site, largely wetlands and bordering areas, will be conserved. The remaining 2,000 acres will be where the solar panels will be installed on steel piles driven into the ground. The land will not be paved over, they say, and will host a flock of sheep. Silicon Ranch practices “agrivoltaics,” where solar farms are also home to gardens or livestock.
“We double crop,” Farr said during the meeting. “We harvest sunlight to produce energy, and we sell grass-fed meat…It basically runs as an agricultural operation after it’s built.”
But the outrage over the proposed solar farm, which was approved by the public service commission in December, has spiraled far beyond the borders of Baldwin County.
State Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, introduced a bill this legislative session that would have instituted a one-year moratorium on all new industrial solar projects. Albritton said the moratorium was needed to understand how these projects would affect communities.
After a late push by Albritton, the State Senate passed the bill Tuesday. But because of a procedural rule that prohibits the senate from transmitting bills to the Alabama House of Representatives after the 26th legislative day, the bill is not likely to be passed before the session ends this week. The Senate could have transmitted the bill anyway with unanimous consent but did not achieve it.
Stockton residents also petitioned the Baldwin County Commission to hold a referendum on implementing zoning in their area. Zoning would give the county’s planning commission more control over land use in their area. That referendum will happen later this year.
In addition to the Silicon Ranch development in Stockton, developers are looking to build a nearly 3,000-acre solar farm further north in Baldwin County. Tensaw Solar, LLC, signed a lease agreement in 2024 to develop solar on property owned by Fort Pierce, LLC. Tensaw Solar shares an address with Walden Renewables, a renewable energy company in New Hampshire.