Solar Project At Former Minor's Farm Gets Recognition

By Dean Wright, The Bristol Press

August 16, 2021

A solar project at the former Minor’s Farm site was recognized with a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday as part of a collaboration between the City of Bristol, Verogay Solar, Agrivoltaic Solutions and NextEra Energy Resources.

Bristol Solar One, as the location is called, is a 11,258 solar panel array spread across 28-acres. It is set to produce 6,234 megawatt hours of Class One renewable energy a year, said Verogay Solar representatives and will not create air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. The project is slated to create enough electricity to power 750 homes. This array’s energy production is set to offset around 4,200 tons of carbon dioxide.

“We were the developers of this individual project. We also performed the construction of the project and worked with partners along the way,” said Verogy Solar CEO William Herchel. He thanked the state and City of Bristol for its partnerships as well as Agrivoltaic Solutions and NexEra resources, the project financier and organization to oversee solar array.

Herchel stressed the importance of developing such projects for the benefit of the environment and energy needs.

Verogay Solar is a solar energy developer based out of Hartford. The project was developed over more than two years.

“We’re so excited to see this come to fruition. It’s interesting from an economic development side that there’s only so much land we have,” said Bristol Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu. “One of the challenges is finding the best fits in order to promote the city moving forward.”

She noted the farm was historic and it was good to see it being utilized in a fashion pointing to the future.

Lexie Hain, a founding partner of Agrivoltaic Solutions, said that sheep would be used to maintain the vegetation surrounding the solar array. Agrivoltaic Solutions is a sheep grazing and vegetation management service provider of solar sites throughout New York state and New England.

“Agriculturally speaking, what you all see as a maintenance issue, I see as food,” said Hain. “My four-legged lawnmowers will actually come through here and eat the vegetation down. We’ll divide the solar site into compartments called paddocks and make one big space into a few smaller rooms and we’ll have the sheep eat their whole plate and eat down the vegetation.”

She said the sheep could more easily access vegetation than human workers and that the ground of the site had been prepared in part with specific foliage growth in mind. Shorn sheep fibers will then be utilized in other fabric or textile projects.

Herchel said that the sun shines on the solar modules of the array and a photon “knocks off an electron” that exists in the polysilicate cells that are part of the module. The electricity runs in conduit and it funnels together into wires which then runs to an inverter and is spread across the electrical grid.

The city benefits through a virtual net metering system which allows municipalities to get credits to electrical bills for the creation of energy on the solar array for energy cost savings. City officials said they anticipate this to save the city government on power bills within a six figure financial range.

“This has been an exciting project ever since we learned of it,” said Michelli Rios-Allen, senior project manager of mergers and acquisitions with NextEra Energy Resources. “NextEra is very big on proving that agriculture and solar have a symbiotic nature and can coexist and this site proves it.”

“Our partnership with Verogy, the City of Bristol, and the Agrivoltaic Solutions allows us to preserve farmland while doing our part to address the impacts of climate change right here in our community,” said Mark Minor in a statement. “We congratulate our partners on the completion of Bristol Solar One and thank them for their continued efforts toward a future where agriculture and renewable energy work hand-in-hand.”