CONWAY — Residents gave a strong endorsement of solar power in town by voting to allow for payments in lieu of taxes for solar energy projects and authorizing the Selectboard to approve such an arrangement for an approximately 5-megawatt community-shared solar project planned at 2394 Main Poland Road.
Nexamp is interested in setting up a solar array on property owned by the Newman family, which reached out to the Boston-based company. Following the adoption of two consecutive special town meeting articles at Conway Grammar School Monday, the three-member Selectboard can now negotiate a PILOT agreement that will produce a regular annual payment in place of property taxes. The amount an entity owes in property taxes fluctuates based on three- to five-year assessments, but a PILOT would generate a predictable revenue stream for the town year after year.
At the special town meeting, Administrative Assessor Lee Whitcomb explained a PILOT payment is “almost always equal to” the amount that would be collected in taxes.
Resident Stephen Baker said the intent seemed to be to give authority to the Selectboard to approve a project with townspeople being left in the dark about its details.
“I wonder if there is some information about what the estimated payment or planned payment would be,” he said.
Whitcomb said she had no figures offhand but a PILOT pertains to the array and any inverter equipment.
“We would still be sending a bill to the landowners for the land underneath it,” she said. “It would be valued as industrial for its income-producing ability.”
Selectboard member Philip Kantor he thought the authority of negotiation with specific projects should lay with Town Meeting.
“I think we can make a better agreement if we have Town Meeting here backing us up,” he said, adding that he wants the people to have the power to negotiate. “This is us making a bet on the future.”
Whitcomb explained the PILOT payments would be based on the array’s capacity, not its production.
“(Nexamp pays) the town even if its cloudy for three weeks. That’s to our benefit and to our advantage,” she said. “It’s a predictable income stream. There’s still room for items within the contract to be altered.”
Hutcheson previously told The Recorder the PILOT money will go into the town’s general fund, where all tax revenue goes. He explained the plan is for the Newmans to lease to Nexamp. The Newmans, Hutcheson said, would get lease money and Nexamp would receive state tax credits.
Ethan Gyles, a development manager for Nexamp, said power distribution lines are already in place near 2394 Main Poland Road. He declined to disclose how much lease money the Newman family would get every month.
Gyles said Nexamp has been interacting with the Conway Conservation Commission and hopes to submit an application to the Planning Board in the fall. He explained energy produced by the array would go to the power grid and any Eversource customer would be able to earn savings on their electric bill if they subscribe to the project through Nexamp. Instead of paying the utility company, subscribers would pay Nexamp, which would offset the subscribers’ Eversource bill by crediting Eversource for them in a process called virtual net-metering.
Gyles said the Newmans own roughly 100 acres, though not all of it would be used to accommodate the solar array. He said how much land the array covers and how many panels there will be depends on surveying and wetlands research.