APA approves 20MW solar project amid planning discussions

By Gwendolyn Craig

The Adirondack Park Agency has approved one of its largest solar project applications to date – 20 megawatts generated by 46,000 panels on approximately 100 acres in the town of Ticonderoga. The project also includes the construction of an underground alternating current line passing under the wetlands and the construction of a new transformer station to connect to the national grid.

The APA board of directors approved the project at its virtual meeting on Thursday, with members Ken Lynch and Joseph Zalewski absent for the final vote.

The project adds to a growing list of approved and proposed solar systems in Ticonderoga; there are six complete and incomplete applications in this city alone. The APA has a total of 13 pending approval requests. Four projects, including the latter, were approved by the board of directors.

Staff prefaced Thursday’s board vote with a presentation on where solar projects are popping up in the park.

Matthew Kendall, environmental programs specialist at the APA, said the 17 projects reviewed or under review represent a total of 164 megawatts on about 980 fenced acres. This represents about 0.03% of all private land in the park, Kendall said.

Jerry Delaney, executive director of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, said later in the meeting that the percentage didn’t give the big picture. Not all private land in the park would be developable, such as bodies of water, steep slopes or land already built, he said. APA staff did not show any information on where solar projects were most likely to be built in the park, he also noted.

On the permits issued so far, Kendall has shown that almost all of them are in agricultural estates. Some applications of downhill pike, however, are in wooded areas. Kendall also noted that about half of the 17 projects were in municipalities with commercial scale solar zoning, while the other half had none.

The big picture

Daniel Kelleher, special assistant for economic affairs at APA, spoke of the concerns of some board members at a meeting in July about longer-term planning for solar projects in the park. Kelleher said that according to APA rules and regulations, the agency does not have the power to regulate project planning. Under the APA law, Kelleher said, the agency examines whether a project has an undue negative impact on things such as water quality, wetlands, forests and open space resources.

Kelleher also presented what some board members thought was an eye-opening slide on the potential scale of solar projects in the park and their carbon benefits. To serve the 131,000 residents of Adirondack Park year-round, Kelleher said, the park would need to generate between 223 and 312 megawatts of electricity. This equates to between 1,560 and 2,183 acres of fenced solar panels.

Andrea Hogan, board member and supervisor for the City of Johnsburg, said that with all of the projects proposed and approved so far before the APA, the park is halfway to meeting those numbers.

“It’s like something important to me,” Hogan said. “The bigger question really is what is appropriate in the park in terms of the volume of solar power.”

The state’s renewable energy targets include 6,000 megawatts of solar power by 2025, Kellher said, with no space allocation of where it’s going.

Chris Cooper, an attorney for the APA, said the agency did not have jurisdiction over the limits or the amount of solar power. The APA, he continued to stress, can only review the projects submitted to it. Executive Director Terry Martino said the APA solar app is a handy tool, but other issues are statewide, not just the park.

Board member Zoë Smith said she had read that local government officials wanted more support from the agency on farmland protection, zoning and feasibility studies.

Ken Lynch, who was present earlier in the meeting, asked if the agency can encourage or induce solar power in some areas of the park and discourage it in other areas.

Martino said any kind of incentive tool would require a legislative change in how the agency operates.

The last project

The 20 megawatt project in Ticonderoga will extend into the area of ​​Veterans Road and National Highway 9N. The new transformer station would mount on Route 9N.

Ariel Lynch, project review manager for the APA, said the panels will have a maximum height of about 8 ½ feet. The panels will move throughout the day to follow the sun. The signs will be visible on Route 9N and from Veterans Road and Mount Defiance. Lynch’s presentation included photos of existing conditions and renderings of the panels on the site.

The town of Ticonderoga has been at the forefront of updating its zoning for commercial solar power. He included a deposit in the dismantling plan for the solar project. Lynch said the amount the city will keep for this is around $ 318,500.

The majority of comments posted on the draft were in its favor. Part of the property was once an apple orchard. The soils are contaminated with pesticides and several metals, according to February testing submitted to the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Arsenic levels exceeded state thresholds for commercial and industrial uses. The solar developer will follow DEC solid waste regulations for excavating soils, but will keep the soils in place, Lynch said.

After approving the project, some board members said they were “uncomfortable” about the lack of planning for solar power.

“I don’t want to look back five years, 10 years and say, ‘Oh, we should have, we could have, but we didn’t,'” said Mark Hall, board member. .

Environmental policy updates

Sign up for Gwen’s weekly Adirondack Report newsletter

Or click here to see the full list of daily and weekly newsletters