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Company explores solar array on Claremont city land

By GLYNIS HART
[email protected]
CLAREMONT — Unused city property near the southern border of Claremont may be an ideal site for a 10 megawatt (MW) solar array. At Wednesday’s city council meeting, Aaron Svedlow of North Light Energy LLC talked about the company’s interest in 80 acres across three city land parcels. He requested permission to do a wetland study there. 

The study would precede any lease agreement North Light might propose. 

Nancy Merrill, director of economic development for the city, said the parcels are near CanAm and Wheelabrator and are zoned for industrial use. 

“It’s difficult land,” said Merrill. “When interest is high, anyone will build anywhere, but at this point in time it’s not an area where we’ve had a lot of interest expressed. Ordinarily I would not recommend industrial land for solar development because it’s not the highest and best use.” 

Merrill said the property might garner interest for industrial use “maybe in 20 or 30 years.” 

Svedlow said North Light’s lease of the property would be 20 years. Right now, the company just wants to survey the wetland, and will share the results of that survey with the city whether or not the solar array happens. 

“I like to come in early to the community to garner support,” said Svedlow, who has been working in alternate energy development for over 12 years. “So it’s not a surprise. Certainly we’re not going to cram anything down anybody’s throat.” 

Svedlow showed the gathering a map of transmission lines and explained that Claremont is a good place for this array because of its connection to the grid. 

The project, should it go forward, would sell all its energy to Eversource. At $10,000 per megawatt per year it could mean $100,000 a year in tax revenue for the city. Svedlow described it as “a quiet taxpayer that uses almost no services.” 

It would not be a job creator “in a meaningful way,” said Svedlow. Although setting it up could temporarily employ around 80 people, only two permanent jobs would attend the project. 

“We’re willing to take the risk understanding you could say, ‘We’re not interested.’” Said Svedlow. He will return to the council in May or June with results of the study. 

The council voted to let the study go ahead.

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