Queen Anne’s County Takes Big Step in Solar
Queen Anne’s County’s newest and largest solar farm is a big step toward clean energy in Maryland. For nearby residents, however, Bluegrass Solar is a regrettable loss of valuable soils and familiar countryside. But to those charged with promoting the broad public interest, it’s not a case of black and white, good and bad, but a balanced innovation.
Bluegrass Solar is racing to complete its new solar array on 320 acres of the 500-acre Knight farm, whose family members signed 25-year leases with developers to bring it about, with options for 10 more years. About eight miles southeast of Chestertown, the facility in the north end of Queen Anne’s is bounded by John Powell, Pondtown, Sheriff Meredith, Bowers, and Ewingtown roads. The property measures 4.5 miles around.
This project should be cheering environmentalists eager to slow global warming by adding an 80 megawatt (MW) no-emission generator to the regional grid. The delivery takes place via an on-site substation directly to a high-voltage Delmarva Power transmission line that passes above the property. Once all the facility’s 188,000 solar panels are online, Bluegrass electricity should power 64,000 homes. That would rank Bluegrass second in the state to Great Bay Solar, with 145 MWs in Somerset County.
With the passage in April of Maryland’s Climate Solutions Now Act, the state set itself a goal of reducing greenhouse gasses by 60 percent of the 2006 level by 2031. By 2050, the Act says, the state should be emitting zero heat holding gas. Even as environmentalists, such as the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, praise the Act as the most ambitious of any state, others see it as unfeasible. Reasons are obvious: As of early 2022, PJM (a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity) had a backlog of over 800 proposed renewable projects to review, some waiting for two years. Further, the biggest share of heat-trapping emissions in the state comes not from power plants, but from cars, trucks, and other motor vehicles.
With state and federal tax incentives and the decreasing costs of solar panels, solar developers are finally enjoying a boom, and with its flat terrain, Maryland’s Eastern Shore is a draw.
Bluegrass’ senior project manager, Jay Marx of Narenco, Inc., of Charlotte, N.C., sounded enthusiastic as he talked about the many subcontractors — up to 280 workers on site per day — aimed at delivering Bluegrass on time.
After weeks of testing, Bluegrass should be fully engaged by Thanksgiving, he said. The builders are made up of solar professionals, firms that put in bids and “travel the country from job to job,” some sinking steel posts that anchor the rows of panels, others attaching plywood-sized, 4x8 foot solar panels. “The money’s really good too,” he added.
The payment to farmers is also good. Sources set the average at $1,000 per acre per year, considerably more than the average profit from farming, and without labor, expenses, and the uncertainties of weather and markets.
“I’m trying to reach the schools, get them to take a field trip, so they can see what solar is all about,” Marx added. A feature of Bluegrass’s design is panels that move; since about 2018, most ground-mounted panels track the angle of sunlight, boosting power about 30 percent.
The grays — the mix of pros and cons in the project — are noted by people such as County Commissioner Jack Wilson (whose District 1 includes the Knight property), the QA Board of Appeals, and Amy Moredock, planning director for Queen Anne’s County.
Wilson says he and others fought off utility-scale solar proposals for at least five years. Since then, court decisions have established that Maryland counties face severe threats of lost autonomy in their planning and zoning roles if they reject projects approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in the state. That commission has also been charged with increasing the number of renewable (solar and wind) power facilities in operation.
“We have to play nice in the Public Service Commission sandbox,” Wilson said. Public hearings on those failed projects were attended by huge crowds, he noted, and at that time, such political pressure was sufficient to dissuade the commission. Today, backed by case law, it can act more independently.
Wilson said the danger to the county’s authority was worse than utility-scale solar in an agricultural area. Under the county zoning code, solar projects are a conditional use allowed in areas zoned agriculture or countryside. They must be approved by the County Board of Appeals. Bluegrass was approved with many stipulations by a 2-to-1 vote. The county commissioners had no vote on it.
Still, Wilson said Bluegrass riled enough District 1 residents that he faced an anti-Bluegrass challenger in the July 19 Republican primary and won by only 38 votes out of 5,430 cast. The position of commissioner pays $25,000 annually.
Twelve nearby residents almost unanimously opposed the project during the June 2019 public hearings by the Board of Appeals, fewer at local hearings by the Public Service Commission. There are about 20 properties adjacent to the solar field’s 4.5-mile boundary, most on Ewingtown Road.
Residents objected to potential storm run-off, the area’s lost rural character, and more cumbersome operations for surrounding farms. They also predicted a severe impact on the area’s migrating waterfowl.
The loss of 500 acres of forage and roosting space would also mean the loss of autumn income to hunting outfitters and guides, who are often farmers in summer, several testified. The developer provided a retired state wildfowl expert who disputed that prediction since local ponds remain. But the remarks of the local hunting faction bore heavily on the “No” vote from the Appeals Board’s then-chair, Kenneth Scott. He wrote, “I think the evidence establishes beyond any doubt the significance of waterfowl and hunting to this neighborhood.”
Scott was outvoted by board members Craig McGinnes and Bill Moore. They noted it made sense to put the installation where high-voltage lines pass overhead in accordance with the county’s ‘utility solar overlay’ district created in late 2017. That law confines such projects to within two miles of transmission lines. The measure sought to prevent disturbing a wider area as building underground connections from distant solar sites would have done.
Then in September 2019, the Public Service Commission added its stamp of approval, granting Bluegrass a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. Reviews and some additional requirements were set forth by state agencies covering archeologic and historic properties (none known on site); avoidance of woods and wetlands (standards met); protecting soil, air and water qualities and threatened fresh-water mussels nearby; and preserving a pleasant view through landscaping a buffer strip.
Amy Moredock, the county’s planning director, echoed Wilson’s and the Appeals Board’s and Commission’s views. She emphasized the scrutiny that Bluegrass has received and will continue to receive. The goal is to ensure the operator follows the many environmental details in their license, which include posting bond to ensure total removal of all equipment within 12 months after the facility reaches the end of its useful life, generally around 25 years.
While under construction, the site is regularly visited by the county’s zoning and public works staff, Moredock said. Wilson said he was notified of storm run-off by neighbors, which resulted in orders to repair silt fences. Residents have already called with concerns about the prescribed variety of plants, mostly native species, going in the vegetation buffer.
The mix of trees and shrubs was designed by Moredock’s predecessor, Michael Wisnosky. At Bluegrass, using a state incentive, clear areas and spaces among the panels will be seeded as meadows to encourage insect pollinators, now in worrisome decline. Some studies indicate such untilled meadows over several decades may leave soils healthier than farming them.
Moredock summed up the situation: “Every county in Maryland has a role to play in supporting the state’s clean energy goals. But we have to be clear that agricultural land is not unused land, not vacant land up for grabs.”
Linda G. Weimer retired from full-time news reporting in 2009 after three years with the Sun Media Group's suburban Baltimore weeklies. As a freelancer, her work has appeared in more than a dozen regional and national publications, including The Washington Post, Sierra Magazine, Seafood Leader, and the New York Times.
Common Sense for the Eastern Shore
