Massive solar farm planned for Warren's Touisset

Firm wants to install more than 13,000 solar panels in residentially-zoned area

By Ted Hayes
Posted 8/3/18

A 50-acre field that has been farmed for hundreds of years could soon see a new crop — electricity — if a plan going before the Warren Zoning Board of Review later this month comes to pass.

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Massive solar farm planned for Warren's Touisset

Firm wants to install more than 13,000 solar panels in residentially-zoned area

Posted

A 50-acre field that has been farmed for hundreds of years could soon see a new crop — electricity — if a plan going before the Warren Zoning Board of Review later this month comes to pass.

At the Wednesday, Aug. 15 meeting, zoning board members will begin reviewing plans to install more than 13,000 solar panels on part of a 50-acre parcel of residential land at 178 Touisset Road. The plan, by Black Horse Farms Solar LLC, was reviewed by the Warren Planning Board in July and recommended for zoning board approval at that time. The applicants need a special use permit, and some state approvals, to develop the solar farm.

According to their application, Black Horse officials want to develop a 4.67-megawatt utility scale development on the land, which is owned by Alexander H. Joe.

“The overarching purpose of the proposed project is to provide a renewable source of energy, with minimal impact on the surrounding environment,” the application reads. “The solar photovoltaic system is a passive use, which will have no significant noise, dust, odor or other pollution or other hazardous materials concerns.”

Though part of the land on which the farm would sit contains wetlands, the panels would not encroach into those areas. Instead, the panels — 13,536 of them, each measuring 6.6 by 3.3 feet and each capable of generating 345 watts — would be erected along open areas. The panels would cover about 10.6 acres, while the entire development would be limited to 20.2 of the property’s 50.4 acres.

Workers would install an access road and clear and grade wooded areas for the required fencing, solar panels, inverters, transformers and electrical interconnect systems. Some of the arrays would butt close to Touisset Road, but developers said they will install rows of arborvitae along the western edge of the property, along the road.

Apart from a special use permit from the Town of Warren, the plan would require a preliminary determination from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and a Rhode Island Pollution Discharge Elimination Systems Construction general permit.

“Existing woodland areas on the site will be cleared only as necessary to construct the infrastructure and avoid shading impacts on proposed solar panels,” the application reads.

Similar plan in Portsmouth shot down

The application is similar to a plan that, while approved for a special use permit last year by the Portsmouth Zoning Board, was overturned two weeks ago by a Rhode Island Superior Court Judge.

In that case, Portsmouth Solar had proposed putting an eight-acre solar farm, with about two acres of panels, on a 30-acre stretch of residential land on Jepson Lane. But after opponents appealed that decision to the Superior Court, a judge late last month reversed the board’s decision, writing in his decision that the manufacturing aspect of the land — in effect, manufacturing energy from sunlight — was not an allowable use in a residential district, and that the board erred in likening the proposed use to that of a utility.

Attorneys for Portsmouth Solar, possibly in conjunction with the Town of Portsmouth, plan to appeal the judge’s decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

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