How the local debate over solar has grown more heated in Maine

How the local debate over solar has grown more heated in Maine

by Elizabeth Walztoni

March 18, 2025

EXCERPTS

If someone told Christina Heiniger several years ago that a solar farm was coming to her hometown of Trenton, she would have thought it was great news.

But after three solar farms were proposed in the roughly 28-square-mile town — including one project that looked to span 300 acres — she no longer supports them.

“It just seemed like enough was enough,” she said.

Heiniger and 20-plus other residents have formed a group opposing further local solar developments that are any larger than a home panel, and the town has been debating how to handle the issue for more than 18 months.

Community solar farms have multiplied across Maine since 2019, with support from the state government. They particularly flourished in 2024, when a record-breaking amount of solar capacity came online. The state’s solar capacity is projected to more than double in the next five years.

At the same time, towns such as Trenton are frightened by larger projects and continue to resist them, in some cases with increasing hostility, putting in moratoriums and ordinances to limit developments.

That resistance isn’t new, but it has more recently caused companies to give up trying to work in the state. According to one developer, the pushback has also become more targeted and ingrained — and it could challenge Maine as it tries to reach a goal of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2040.

When Gov. Janet Mills’ administration introduced legislation to encourage solar development during her first term, proposals multiplied. Some towns quickly passed moratoriums that gave them time to develop ordinances governing how and where the projects could be built.

In those years, concerns often centered on the disposal of the panels after their 20- to 30-year lifespans. Maine has limited landfill and recycling capacity, and the panels include some heavy metals, though producers say they don’t leak out of the panels.

These worries are still present in Trenton, as are questions about herbicide use on the lots, wildlife displacement, the necessity of clearcutting trees in a heavily forested town, resistance to development in residential areas, access to the site for local firefighters and concerns about contamination from “forever chemicals.”.....................

...................................Residents have worked hard and tried to be civil, Heiniger said, but there’s been tension and questions about whether compromise is possible. While some residents oppose solar, others have supported it as long as it has limits. A third group has chafed at restrictions, feeling they infringe on the rights of individual land owners..........................

.......................He said he’s seen a significant number of developers leave the state over the last three years because they find it difficult to do business here. Maine law gives towns more local control than many other states, and there’s a tradition of resistance to outsiders and unfamiliar changes.

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/03/18/midcoast/midcoast-enviro...

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