There are close to 150,000 solar panels silently producing clean, green energy from the sun, through our 19 new solar sites. We constructed these sites on vacant lots and fields across the commonwealth. But what you see now took years of planning behind the scenes headed up by people like Eversource Solar Project Director Mark Kimball and Solar Program Manager Bill Blanchard.
"These solar projects are good for the environment and the communities where we work and live," said Eversource Solar Project Director Mark Kimball. "There's so much work that goes into building a solar site, including engineering, surveying, excavating, fencing, landscaping, and of course, the electrical work required. These projects deliver clean, carbon-free energy and good local jobs."
"We had excellent teams working on each one of our 19 projects," said Eversource Solar Program Manager Bill Blanchard. "They did superb work - on time and on schedule."
Building large-scale "universal" solar sites - universal because they benefit everyone - is something we've done since 2010 when we constructed our first three solar sites. Those sites, one in Pittsfield and two in Springfield, produce eight megawatts of energy, which is enough energy to power almost 1,500 homes. Now, in just about a year, we built six times as many sites, producing eight times the amount of solar power. It's enough energy to power more than 11,000 homes.
For us to build large-scale, ground-mounted solar sites we need four acres of land for every megawatt we're producing. That means our team had to find approximately 250 acres of acceptable land across Eastern and Western Massachusetts. We started out with a list of about 100 properties and whittled it down to the 19 sites you see today.
We received federal, state and local permits, and spent hundreds of hours meeting with town officials explaining the program and getting permission to build our solar projects.
"Even before we could put a shovel into the ground, the environmental and municipal permitting was a challenge that took a lot of time," said Blanchard. "We worked closely with town officials, explaining the process with respect to our deadlines so that we could expedite the work as quickly as possible to get our sites up and running."
