North Springfield solar array project underway

Perhaps the most visible solar array in Springfield is being installed at the corner of Route 10 and Route 106 in North Springfield.
http://www.vermontjournal.com/content/north-springfield-solar-array-project-underway

North Springfield Solar Array Project Underway Submitted by VT Journal on Tue, 11/04/2014 - 12:46pm By LAUREN DRASLER The Shopper SPRINGFIELD, VT -In recent years, renewable energy such as solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal heating and cooling have been gaining in popularity. Though many people consider these options on a smaller scale for homes or businesses, solar arrays, which are large-scale solar panel projects, have also become a more familiar sight in the area. Perhaps the most visible solar array in Springfield is being installed at the corner of Route 10 and Route 106 in North Springfield. This project is being constructed by groSolar, a Vermont based company that installs solar panels across the United States. The land where the solar array is being installed is owned by Dennis and Bonnie McPadden who are residents of Springfield. According to testimony that Dennis McPadden provided to the Public Service Board in April of 2013, McPadden created the Springfield Solar Alliance I LLC to help create and develop the solar project on his property. In the testimony, McPadden said, “The Springfield Solar Alliance I Project involves the construction of a 1,000 kW AC solar electric generation facility”. McPadden said in the testimony that he owns the 7.83 acre parcel of land with his wife Bonnie, and that the land had been previously used for a motel and more recently as horse pastures with run-in facilities on the property. “Approximately 26 varying-length rows of solar panels will be installed in a fixed-mounted racking system oriented east to west,” McPadden said during his testimony in 2013. “An inverter building housing the inverters, junction boxes and switch gear will be constructed on the west-central portion of the property. The Project transformer will be contained in a vault located next to the inverter building.” McPadden said in his testimony that the construction of the solar array would take between three and four months, and after the construction was finished, only occasional maintenance would need to be performed. According to his 2013 testimony, McPadden said that the Project “is being developed per a standard-offer contract offered by the State of Vermont’s Sustainability Priced Energy Enterprise Development (SPEED) program. My wife, Bonnie McPadden, and I executed the contract with the State’s SPEED facilitator on January 7, 2013. We assigned the contract to my limited liability corporation, Springfield Solar Alliance I, LLC (“SSA”) on March 25, 2013.” McPadden also stated that the electricity that will be produced by the solar array will be sold back to the contract with SPEED for a price of 27.1 cents/kWh. “The Planning Commission and the Public Service Board first started having meetings about this project in February of 2013,” Administrative Officer for Planning and Zoning Bill Kearns said. “It’s a big project. Right now, the posts are all up for the panels, and a fence has been installed all around the property.” Kearns said that the final step of construction for the solar array will be planting trees and bushes around the fence. Although McPadden’s testimony was from 2013, the project is already underway and is being installed by groSolar, a company that has corporate offices in Columbia, Maryland, Rutland, Vermont and White River Junction, Vermont. The company has been operating for 15 years. The website states that: “[groSolar] is a privately owned company, which provides turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) solar photovoltaic (PV) projects for developers, financiers, utilities, and commercial, government, and other institutional clients.” Because groSolar does not own the site where the solar array is being installed in North Springfield, the company declined to comment on the project due to privacy concerns. With the project nearing completion, residents that live near the site where the solar array is being installed may now have concerns. Leland Shippei, however, who lives in Waterford Village next to the project site, said that he supports the solar array. “I have no objection to renewable energy at all,” he said. “I was told that the project was going to happen before it began. The land was previously a horse pasture, and the owner wanted [to have] a good use for the property, so they decided to go with solar energy.” Shippei said that he has not been given a timeframe for when the project will be done, but did say the start date was delayed due to an endangered species of plant that was present in the field where the solar array is being installed. “It’s been a long process because of the delay,” he said. “The construction had to wait so the plant could seed, which held up the whole project.” As of November 3, neither Dennis nor Bonnie McPadden could be reached for comment in regard to the construction of the solar array on their property. - See more at: http://www.vermontjournal.com/content/north-springfield-solar-array-project-underway#sthash.DrTterAd.dpuf