Solar Politicking
Sunday Thoughts
It isn’t even 2025 yet but townspeople here in the heart of pure democracy are already gearing up for March Town Meeting. Sandwich voters will come together to debate and vote on whether to buy a new fire truck or some other six-figure budget expenditure. And we’ll be just as vocal and opinionated when we get to the last warrant articles on whether to give $500 to the local food pantry.
There is always some juicy issue on the warrant. This year it’s solar
.
One citizen and a committee of unnamed others whom he calls Citizens of Sandwich want to add extensive amendments to the Zoning Ordinance prohibiting any large solar systems in parts of Town and restricting them severely everywhere.
The Planning Board has met this proposal with their own counter proposal for some but lesser restrictions on solar.
And now the sandwichboard, our Google group chat platform, is bubbling with comments. Today the proponent of the solar prohibitions put out a document explaining six differences between his idea and the Planning Board’s.
Another liberal writer posted a sardonic thought: “In the approaching new world order these discussions might seem quaint, or perhaps to be crushed if they get in the way of what the new ruling billionaire class, now led by Elon Musk, believes is in their best interest.”
That prompted our town right-winger to shoot back her post, “Elon Musk > Bill Gates. Just sayin!”
I couldn’t resist putting my oar in the water:
“Dear Mr. Delgado, Thank you for publishing your six differences between your proposed amendments to the Zoning Ordinance and what the Planning Board has proposed.
Neither you nor the Planning Board has yet explained why we need any amendments to the Zoning Ordinance regarding solar systems.
Zoning generally addresses broad types of land use such as farming or residential use. The ordinance avoids singling out subcategories of such uses. Our ordinance, for example, does not permit dairy farming but prohibit organic vegetable farming. It does not require that all residences in the shoreline district be summer residences only or that only full time residents may live in the Historic District.
So why do these proposed amendments single out solar energy systems rather than all energy producing systems? If we want to restrict solar panels in the Village District, why not smoky wood stoves or noisy generators too? Should we prohibit solar in the Groundwater District but allow wind or geothermal, hydro or nuclear systems?
Your recent article looks even more specific with your discussion of “thin film solar systems.” Solar technology is advancing so fast this seems a questionable and narrow concern. By that reasoning maybe we should prohibit systems that only capture red visible light and require all systems to collect light across the whole spectrum, including elusive blue light. We would not want to bar residential building from using foam insulation or restrict new construction to post and beam only.
Parts of these proposals also seem to create redundancies in the ordinance. The Groundwater Protection portion of the ordinance already gives the Planning Board options for controlling any development on the aquifer. Similarly, the Historic District Commission has very extensive control of land use in the villages and the option to permit uses that they decide will harm no one.
For example, why shouldn’t the Historic District Commission have the right to permit solar panels on the Fair Association’s barn rooves. If the panels faced south, no one in Center Sandwich would see them. Why shouldn’t a resident of Church St. or Maple St. have a few solar panels that would help reduce their utility bills if the Historic Commission see no issue with that?
Your proposal also may counteract other regulations. In 2004, the citizens of Sandwich passed Zoning Ordinance 150-4-J “To encourage the installation and use of solar, wind, or other renewable energy systems…” That ordinance as well as a State law, RSA 477:51, go so far as to protect solar panels from neighbors who might build or plant something which could block the sun from those panels. Your proposal does just the opposite.
Just three years ago, Sandwich voters amended our Master Plan to add a whole chapter about energy. That plan sets out long term goals for reliance on renewable energy. And it established an Energy Committee to help us figure out how to reach those goals, not just for Town buildings and offices but for private citizens too.
We haven’t heard from the Energy Committee as to what they think of your proposals. Maybe we should wait a year or two and ask them to guide us on solar and lots of other options for energy production. Maybe we’ll learn more at the Planning Board’s public hearing on January 2, 6 p.m.”
I am probably incorrect that the solar amendments are aimed at restricting small solar systems in our historic village. But that’s part of the fun of Town Meeting. We don’t have to be experts at all the minutia of proposed changes to our town rules. In the debates and hearings and final meeting, ordinary citizens try to explain these details and hammer out the wheres and why fors. We have to listen to each other.
Mr. Delgado and his committee do want to limit the size of solar systems we individual citizens can build. He proposes to limit the area of a system’s panels and if someone tries to sell more than 20 percent of their captured photons to the utility company, even a small system will be redefined as a commercial one.
I neglected to mention in my tome that there are several solar aficionados in our town who have built, piece by piece, DIY, fairly large solar systems.
“I have 64 panels,” one of these inventive people told me.
Why would anyone need 64 panels? Another passionate solar owner explained, “I’m trying to get to where I never have to pay the electric company a dollar. They should pay me.”
So there’s an ox that might be gored.
It’s hard enough to be tangled up lately with lessons on volts and amps. Now it looks like all of my neighbors and I will be tied up in knots on something even more complicated, human politics.
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