Speaking via a Microsoft Teams webcast, Kaylen Olwin and Wendy Kingsland, project managers, and Katie Chapman, senior project manager, said the Houston, Texas-based renewable energy company is in the early stages of the process of developing the solar farm.
Anticipated to be operational in 2025, the project would fall under the NYS Office of Renewable Energy Siting Section 94-c guidelines (a revamped version of the former Article 10).
About 24 people were on last night’s videoconference, including Town of Alabama board members, residents and the company officials.
Olwin said EDP Renewables currently has 58 wind and nine solar projects in North America, with five wind systems in New York producing 704.65 megawatts of power and 66 permanent jobs. She said the Alabama Solar Park Project would create 250 construction jobs and four permanent positions.
A look at the map presented last night shows the project covering several roads, including Batavia-Oakfield Townline, Galloway, Macomber, Maple, Gorton, Hutton, Wight, Judge, Morgan and Knowlesville, plus the vicinity of Maple Avenue.
Olwin said the company has 2,000 acres under lease at this time but the current plan is to have 940 acres of solar panels “inside the fence.” She added that EDP Renewables plans to comply with state and town setback regulations – up to 300 feet from homeowners’ property lines.
“Putting solar panels too close to homes is not a good thing,” she said.
The timeline for 2022 as proposed lists completion of land leasing – they did not disclose the current number of leasing agreements – as well as commencement of project design and finalizing environmental studies pertaining to winter grassland raptor surveys, breeding bird surveys, wetland delineations, archaeological studies and geotechnical studies.
The EDP Renewables reps said they plan to conduct quarterly meetings, preferably in person, while waiting for completion of the New York Independent System Operator study.
If all goes according to plan, an application to ORES would happen in 2023, construction would start in 2024 and the project would be online in 2025, they said. Olwin said the financial benefits to the Town of Alabama, Oakfield-Alabama School District, and Genesee County have yet to be determined.
Similar solar farms in Byron and Oakfield/Elba are at various stages, also as part of the Article 10/ORES process.
Contacted by The Batavian this morning, Alabama Town Supervisor Robert Crossen said the Town Board has been communicating with the three EDP Renewables’ managers for more than two years about the project.
He said EDP Renewables was one of three solar companies that provided input into the town’s solar law that was adopted in 2020.
While not opposed to the project, Crossen said he and the board are aware of the power granted to ORES to override any local solar regulations.
“The biggest thing the town board is wrestling with is the (compatibility with) our Comprehensive Plan and the loss of farmland – prime farmland and prime farmland when drained,” he said. “There could be up to 25 to 50 percent more land needed than what is inside the fence.”
Crossen said the major question is “how do we rectify agriculture and our Comprehensive Plan and the loss of farmland? It’s contrary to that plan.”
One provision of the town’s solar law is that it puts a cap of 2,500 acres for solar panels.
“We figured if we made it less than that, they (ORES) would just throw it out,” he said.
While the town does allow for more than 50 percent of prime farmland for solar, the law stipulates that if the solar developer exceeds that percentage, then it has to go somewhere else in the town and purchase development rights on a farm so it can’t be used for anything other than farming, Crossen added.
“We’re hoping that 94-c won’t throw that out,” he said.
Crossen said he understands that EDP Renewables “is serious” about this project as at least one of the three project managers attends each of the board’s monthly meetings.
Photo from EDP Renewables website.
Previously: In the hopes of curbing some state power over solar farms, Town of Alabama adopts solar ordinance
