ASHFIELD— A new solar array may be coming to the wastewater treatment plant on Conway Road. The Ashfield Selectboard has given the Energy Committee the go ahead to begin designing an array to fit the town’s needs with Solect Energy, a solar company based in Hopkinton.

The company will now begin designing the project and putting together a proposal for the town to review.

In recent years, the town as been working to become more eco-friendly and energy efficient, encouraging residents to invest in solar for their homes and looking into solarizing town-owned property and buildings. In a report to the Selectboard, the Energy Committee wrote that after reviewing the various town properties and their access to three phase power, buildable land or a roof and the sun, the committee determined the wastewater treatment plant would be the best location for a municipal solar array. 

While the size of the array has yet to be determined, the committee feels confident the array would be able to cover not only the plant’s energy needs in its entirety, but could potentially offset much of the town’s other electricity costs. 

“Based on informal conversations with a solar developer, the WWTP electric bill would be fully covered by a 54KW ground mount array in the field around the building. Such an array would cost approximately $220K to build. Depending on wetlands factors it may be possible to build a larger array in the WWTP field to not only cover the WWTP facility but also offset some other town electricity bills through net metering credits,” the committee wrote in its report.

Energy Committee Chair Alexandra Osterman said the treatment plant uses the most energy among the town-owned properties, and the field behind it is not visible from the road, making it a prime spot for solar. With the approval of the Selectboard, Finance Committee and Sewer Commission, she scheduled a site visit with Solect in order to begin designing the field. 

She told the board that as design plans move forward, the Energy Committee will incorporate the Sewer Commission’s current and future needs for leaching fields. Additionally, while they have determined the solar array will be built on the field rather than the plants roof, the committee does not know yet how much of the field will be used. 

“I would like to stay away from clearing because it becomes very controversial very fast,” Osterman said. “I would like to see what can we fit into the field, as it is, that would be reasonable and give us a good return and produce enough electricity that we would be happy with it.”

Selectboard member Todd Olanyk expressed support for the location, and said if necessary he would support clearing some trees for further development of the spot. 

“We don’t have room for a nuclear plant here in Ashfield, but we need to get electricity from somewhere,” Olanyk said.

Board Chair Steve Gougeon said he understood and appreciated Osterman’s hesitancy to cut down trees, but the town needs energy and the location is better than other municipal-owned properties in town, which are near residential areas. The design will need to be a balance of preserving the trees and land and making the land fit the towns needs. 

Osterman noted the Energy Committee would like to use Solect as it moves forward after hearing great things about the company from the neighboring towns of Buckland and Williamsburg, as well as the Mohawk Trail Regional School, which all used the company for its solar projects. The towns said the bidding processes were not as successful as they would have hoped, in some cases scrapping projects due to only receiving one bid, but found Solect to be a great partner to work with. 

“A lot of towns around our area are using Solect,” Osterman said. 

The board told Osterman to move forward with designing a field with Solect, and come up with options not just restricted to the cleared field near the plant.

Once a design is prepared the town can pursue grant funding in order to construct the field. The Energy Committee wrote that there are two potential grants they could pursue for this project: the Climate Leader Community Grant and the DEP Gap Grant. Both would require a town match of around $44,000, which the committee says the town would recoup quickly through a tax return and energy cost offsets.

“The electric bill for the WWTP is currently $19K a year. So, for the remaining $26K following the ... tax return, the project will pay for itself in about 1.5 years,” the committee wrote.”

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com