An 11-acre solar array was plugged into Sidney’s electric grid last week after a local family donated the land on which the array was built. The solar farm is expected to produce enough electricity to power 500 homes. East Brown Cow photo

SIDNEY — A new solar array was plugged into the electric grid this month, delivering enough power for about 500 homes, after a local family provided the farmland for a new community solar project to combat climate change in Maine.

The 11-acre solar farm is expected to send all of the 3.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity it generates annually back into the local grid, officials said, marginally lowering costs for customers in Sidney. A kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy measuring the amount consumed in one hour.

Carl and Janet Quirion own the plot of land near the intersection of West River and Trafton roads, where the 11-acre solar farm sits, and had used it for years to hunt game, while renting it to local dairy farms for grazing and farmland.

After the land sat unused for the past several years, the Quirions decided they wanted to use the land for a large project to benefit the entire community. They settled on a solar array, which they hope will reduce costs and carbon emissions in Sidney.

“I’m really happy to see it go through, because I know that we’re doing a good thing the right way, right now,” Carl Quirion said. “We have to look at how we produce electricity, and ask about not only the cost benefits, but what are the benefits to the environment.

“I mean, we can’t just stick our head in the sand and say, ‘Oh, we’re doing fine.’ We’re just burning too much fuel, and this will help a little bit.”

The project was developed through a partnership between ReVision Energy, an employee-owned New England solar installer, and East Brown Cow, a Portland-based real estate firm.

“The electricity generated is going into the grid and will remain in Maine, flowing to where the demand for it exists,” East Brown Cow spokesperson Jessica James wrote in an email. “It is being used by other consumers as a source of renewable energy.”

Construction on the array began in September 2023 and concluded in July of this year.

Sidney residents rejected a proposal last year to adopt an ordinance regulating solar farms. The decision was based on concerns that the town’s electric grid would not be able to handle that much new electricity, though officials said at the time that the ordinance only would set guardrails for future solar development, rather than encourage it.

Although several small solar arrays had been installed in the town, officials say the municipality lacked the ability to regulate them.

The town later adopted a solar ordinance at its annual town meeting in March, and began regulating solar power systems soon afterward.

Sidney’s adopted solar ordinance is nearly identical to the one voted down last year. Minor tweaks were made to the precise definition of a “large-scale” solar farm, and to require more vegetation buffering around solar arrays.

The Sidney array is one of hundreds that have been built across Maine over the past five years, as the state continues pushing to embrace renewable energy. Gov. Janet Mills set forward a policy goal last year to move Maine toward using 100% renewable energy for its electricity by 2040.

That initiative has been bolstered by a 2019 law that encourages small-scale solar farm developments in Maine through a policy known as net energy billing, a program that gives the owners of solar arrays credits to reduce their electricity bills in exchange for the extra electricity their arrays produce, and allows multiple people to own a solar farm and benefit from its credits.

The policy has created a boon for community solar projects, such as the Sidney array. In fact, Carl Quirion said it was that law that inspired him to facilitate the community solar farm’s creation.

“I knew that solar farms had been promoted, and finally Maine got onto bandwagon,” he said. “I just called ReVision, asked them if they would be interested in doing a project, and they wanted to. Didn’t take too long to get the wheels turning after that.”

While community solar farms allow local homeowners to buy into the program, use their electricity and save money on electric bills, Maine’s solar policies have drawn criticism for being too generous at the expense of ratepayers not using solar power who subsidize the program. Central Maine Power Co. told regulators earlier this year it expected to raise customers’ rates by 12% to offset subsidies given to Maine solar farms.

Proponents of solar development, however, said the program is already working to offset Maine’s carbon emissions, as the state begins seeing the impacts of warming oceans and changing climates.

More than half of Maine’s energy comes from clean sources, according to a report last year from the Maine Climate Council. The amount has trended upward in recent years.

While the Quirions still own the land, credits from the Sidney array are being retained by East Brown Cow, which owns the array.

East Brown Cow plans to sell the energy credits it receives from the farm “as part of its broader commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship,” according to the company.

“Our long-term partnership with ReVision Energy demonstrates our commitment to environmental stewardship,” East Brown Cow President Tim Soley said in a statement. “Expanding our real estate portfolio to include an off-site solar project is an exciting progression and an elegant solution in that it will yield both environmental sustainability outcomes and the financial sustainability needed for future stewardship initiatives.”

Seeing the solar farm finally connected to the electric grid is a point of pride for the Quirions because it marks the conclusion of several years of work and benefits the community connected to the local grid.

“I absolutely believe in the solar power,” Carl Quirion said. “I put it on my house and it nearly took all of my electricity costs away. Now this array is taking away some of the costs for people in the area, and it’s taking care of carbon emissions at the same time.”