Since 2018, obtainable knowledge present accepted photo voltaic farms starting from one to 926 acres, with the bulk being inside 20 to 45 acres. Of the permitted tasks, 10 are described as being greater than 100 acres.

However these figures are an undercount and primarily based on incomplete knowledge the BDN collected from the division, which didn’t embrace acreage info in its database for 51 out of 110 complete websites accepted between 2018 and 2022.

It’s not but recognized what number of photo voltaic tasks require reducing of timber, however it’s clear that many have. Primarily based on the unfinished dataset, builders for 19 websites estimated they would want to clear a mixed complete of about 696 acres. 

That complete doesn’t embrace the variety of acres being cleared by what will probably be Maine’s largest photo voltaic farm. Longroad Power’s Three Corners Undertaking, which is underneath development in Benton, Clinton and Unity Township, estimates it might want to clear 690 acres of vegetation and timber for its photo voltaic panels. Your complete website is 926 acres.

Maine has greater than 17.5 million acres of forestland, which is significant for wildlife and capturing carbon dioxide, a fuel that may lure warmth that Earth would have in any other case radiated into house.

“The place you select to place a website is vital, given the choices,” stated Noah Charney, an assistant professor within the division of wildlife, fisheries, and conservation biology on the College of Maine. “Then, the way you handle the positioning can have a big impact on what wildlife can exist there.”

Photo voltaic builders accommodating habitats

Two corporations, North Yarmouth-based Department Renewable Power and Boston-based BlueWave Photo voltaic, stated they acknowledge the necessity to decrease environmental modifications on their photo voltaic farms.

BlueWave Photo voltaic has arrange most of its photo voltaic farms on already-cleared land, and 5 of the corporate’s 15 photo voltaic tasks being developed in Maine are close to forested areas, stated Alan Robertson, the managing director of BlueWave Photo voltaic, which has developed photo voltaic farms throughout New England.

BlueWave Photo voltaic’s websites are modified to accommodate vegetation or species the corporate needs to preserve. They’re twin use, which implies along with producing solar energy for the grid, the websites are designed to permit species to thrive, cattle to roam and typically even farming to proceed, Robertson stated.

In Massachusetts, the place the corporate is headquartered, there are state incentives for twin makes use of of photo voltaic websites, however in Maine there are none. For twin use in Massachusetts, photo voltaic panels are required to be constructed increased, at a minimal peak of 10 toes, and to be spaced aside.

On a photo voltaic farm in Massachusetts, BlueWave designed tall photo voltaic panels to accommodate grazing cattle. In Rockport, Maine, the corporate constructed photo voltaic panels in blueberry fields, the place the crops are nonetheless produced and farmed across the arrays, Robertson stated.

In Sanford, Robertson stated his firm realized there have been black racer snakes, a protected species, on the photo voltaic website it was growing.

“We might have simply paid some cash and been on our merry manner,” he stated, however as an alternative the corporate opted to discover a approach to preserve the species.

Black racer snakes require tree cowl, sandy soils to climb into locations the place they’re protected, and daylight.

“We’re engaged on a habitat examine, and, if the venture strikes ahead, we hope to create woody particles piles inside the array to assist promote the proliferation of that species,” Robertson stated.

“Phrases like deforestation are painful for me to listen to, as a result of it makes it sound like we’re destroying 20 acres, and that’s simply not the case,” stated Chris Byers, the proprietor of Department Renewable Power. The corporate has developed and supplied session for 100 photo voltaic tasks throughout Maine, he stated.

On his websites, Byers appears for methods to preserve a brand new or present habitat within the fields, between photo voltaic arrays. In a meadow habitat, the corporate lets grass develop out beneath the photo voltaic panels to take care of an setting for critters and birds.

“You’ll see birds thriving and nesting across the photo voltaic panels and touchdown on them,” he stated.

Charney, with the College of Maine, argues that it may be less expensive for builders to handle an present habitat, as an alternative of paying compensation charges. The state can require an organization to do some sort of conservation work both on or off website, when pure assets or vital species are affected, or pay a compensation charge.

“Mowing much less continuously, like every year the place you let the meadow develop with potential native seed mixes” can entice native bugs, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and assist them keep their habitat, Charney stated. If the photo voltaic website is fenced, builders can permit passageways for small mammals to maneuver by.

Whereas photo voltaic improvement is critical to fulfill local weather targets, and photo voltaic corporations can decrease the disturbance to vegetation and species, Charney, Byers and Robertson additionally agreed that clearing forestland to develop photo voltaic power on a broad scale in Maine is inevitable.

How large-scale photo voltaic improvement can disrupt forest ecology 

Clearing elements of forested land produces what known as an edge habitat, or the transition from forest to meadow. Creating an edge habitat can change the local weather inside the forest and make it much less appropriate for extra delicate species similar to birds and amphibians that inhabit the extra inside elements of forests.

Chopping right into a contiguous forest, or an outdated forest, can have a profound impact on the species that rely upon inside forest ecosystems as a result of the perimeters have extra daylight and hotter temperatures, Charney stated. The sting results can lengthen greater than 100 meters — roughly the size of a soccer discipline.

Because the local weather warms, some species might want to shift to cooler locations. Eliza Donoghue, the director of advocacy and a workers legal professional at Maine Audubon, a wildlife conservation group, emphasised that holding onto massive forest blocks to permit species to go by is vital for habitat connectivity and carbon sequestration.

“Simply since you’re following the legal guidelines and laws doesn’t imply that these tasks don’t have an effect,” Donoghue stated.

In a lot of Maine, nonetheless, the forests are already logged and have present edge habitats.

“We’re sometimes reducing down one thing that was minimize not that way back and goes by the method of succession anyway,” Charney stated. Because of this, the environmental results are website dependent and differ.

Robertson believes the websites which can be developed can ultimately return to forestland.

“Now we have to decommission the programs after we’re gone,” Robertson stated. “So the websites we use can nonetheless be returned to forestland over time, after we vacate.”

Do you’ve got questions or observations about photo voltaic farms close to you? Please e-mail Mehr Sher at msher@bangordailynews.com.

Mehr Sher is a Report for America corps member. Further help for this reporting is supplied by the Unity Basis and donations by BDN readers.

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