A proposed solar farm in East Drumore Township would look like this.
Site of proposed solar farm
What could be Pennsylvania's largest solar farm is proposed to soak up the rays of southern Lancaster County.
Community Energy, one of the nation's largest wind-energy marketers, is seeking to build a $20 million crop of solar panels amid grass on 40 acres of a farm just south of the Buck.
Rows of 20-foot-by-8-foot glass panels would generate about 6 megawatts, enough electricity to continuously power about 900 homes.
The electricity would be fed into the PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization serving parts of 13 states. The alternative energy could be purchased by utilities.
Brent Alderfer, president of the Delaware County company, presented the proposal to East Drumore Township supervisors last Thursday.
"To have something that can generate income and clean energy and be part of farmland preservation — yes, I'm excited for Pennsylvania," Alderfer said in an interview Wednesday.
Alderfer and Ken Rutt, a local real estate agent working with Community Energy, said the project would generate no noise, smell, soil erosion, truck traffic or pollution and would generate tax revenue while not requiring any local services.
"The neighbors won't need to smell the manure and see the dust. It's a win-win for the community," said Rutt, a former farmer and ag consultant.
"We get energy, it keeps farmland intact and requires no municipal services for it. It's a national security thing. It's an ag security thing."
The location, on the Gerald and Linda Kreider farm on the southeast side of Route 272 and Deaver Road, is attractive because it is flat, open, has PPL transmission lines running through the property and has a substation nearby.
But Alderfer said he also is drawn to Lancaster County because its farmland is under development pressure.
A solar farm would make it attractive for the Kreiders to stay in farming, he said. After a 25-year lease, if the Kreiders or the company want to discontinue the solar farm, it could be removed and the fields would be ready for crops again.
"It pays pretty good," said Gerald Kreider, who would lease 85 acres of his farm for the solar operation. Kreider is a former dairy and poultry farmer who now leases the farm.
Township supervisors greeted the proposal with interest, though Supervisor Scott Kreider said he wanted to hear feedback from township residents.
"I guess I'll be anxious to see how the community accepts that. It's not your typical commercial project," he said.
"It certainly doesn't seem to pollute, and it doesn't bring any additional traffic into the community."
Also, there is the question of how the solar farm might be allowed. The proposed use is a commercial venture, which is not permitted under agricultural zoning.
"That's the first question we have to address," Kreider said. "It's not an ag use. We can't ignore our zoning."
The supervisors will be meeting with their solicitor to determine if the project would need to seek a conditional-use permit, rezoning or other venue.
The type of solar panels that would be used has not yet been determined, Alderfer said. The panels could be fixed or they might rotate slowly to follow the sun.
They would be in interconnected rows on piers, rising 4 to 10 feet above the ground.
If approved, Alderfer said, construction could begin in the summer or fall. It would take five or six months to begin generating electricity.
Community Energy was formed in 1999. It built some of the first utility-scale wind farms in the Northeast and Midwest. In 2006, the company sold its wind-development division to Iberdrola Renewables, an international energy company,
In 2009, the company started a new development division with an emphasis on solar production. It has about 30 employees.
A larger solar farm, capable of producing 10 megawatts, has been proposed for Carbon County. But it has not yet broken ground.