by Valerie Hurley ·
Friday, April 17, 2026
Voting “yes” on articles 25, 26, and 27 at the May 2 Town Meeting would update Harvard’s 16-year-old bylaw regulating ground-mounted solar installations and would let the town continue negotiating with a solar developer to create a new 1.4 MW solar farm on town-owned land. The installation, on the town’s former gravel pit on Stow Road, would offset energy costs for municipal buildings.
Proponents say the solar farm would save the town $2-$2.3 million in energy costs over 20 years. Over the past six weeks they held three information sessions—each attended by between 12 and 20 residents—at the Harvard Senior Center, gathering input to help them choose among three system configurations. Leading the effort are members of the Energy Advisory Committee, including the committee’s chair, Brian Smith, and Select Board member Ahmet Corapcioglu. Present at the sessions was Byron Woodman, director of business development at Solect Energy, the company that would build and operate the system.
Article 26 would add two parcels—both on Stow Road—to the town’s existing solar overlay district, updating residential setbacks and adding requirements for site plan review pertaining to public hearings, screening, and noise. Article 27 is the district’s map, showing the two parcels to be added. One is the town’s former gravel pit, much of it forested, but with the open portion used to deposit brush and logs cleared from other parts of town. The other is a vacant 32-acre parcel known as the Warila land. It abuts Interstate 495 and is home to rare species and habitat, according to a map from MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.
Article 25 would enable town officials to arrange a lease with Solect Energy, the Hopkinton-based solar developer that would install and maintain a solar farm in the former gravel pit. Solect was matched with Harvard though PowerOptions, a nonprofit that helps New England municipalities vet potential partners and secures favorable terms for their energy contracts. Town Meeting would need to pass all three articles for the project to proceed on the proponents’ desired timeline.
But approving these warrant articles is not the same as approving the solar installation itself, said Smith. Passing them Iets the town pursue the project while the 30% reimbursement federal tax incentives—set to expire in July—remain in effect. The installation, he said, aligns with goals of the town’s 2022 Climate Action Plan by supplying an estimated 70% of town buildings’ energy needs with renewable energy sources. And the town could economize with locked-in rates, yielding an estimated savings of $120,000 per year, according to the committee’s financial projections.
But, Smith said, if after the three articles are approved engineering or environmental assessments reveal problems that make the project infeasible, it will not advance.
The current solar overlay district consists of two parcels: the 10-acre, former landfill near the Transfer Station; and the Harvard Solar Garden, an existing ground-mounted installation on Ayer Road behind Kennedy’s Landscaping. Both parcels are unavailable for any new installations.
The .5 MW, nonbattery Harvard Solar Garden came online 12 years ago and provides power to shareholders in town and surrounding communities. As for the former landfill, it is not currently safe for construction. At the March 25 information session, Select Board member Eve Wittenberg said the landfill was “contaminated with PFAS, needs to be recapped, and is tied up in studies.” The town awaits direction from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, MassDEP, about next steps, Wittenberg said.
Pete Jackson and Gail McCarthy, both residents of Jacob Gates Road, said the old landfill is “the perfect location” for a solar installation and a better choice than the gravel pit. Acknowledging that it would be a few years before a system could be installed there, Jackson asked, “What’s the benefit to the town without the tax credit?” Corapcioglu said the outlook was “about $200,000 negative.” Without the federal tax credits, he said, “We don’t go forward with the project.”
At the third information session, April 9, the committee had absorbed citizens’ comments about the installation and had settled on a scaled-down system, rejecting two other systems discussed at the March sessions. By then, the committee had also completed its financial analysis and chosen the business model it would use for the solar farm.
The best option, the committee announced, was to enter a 20-year credit purchase agreement with Solect, rejecting options to buy the system outright or after a seven-year lease. Under the credit purchase agreement, Harvard would lease the land to Solect and buy solar energy credits from Solect at a discounted rate, generating savings to be applied to Harvard’s municipal electricity bills. This arrangement would avoid upfront costs, because Solect would own the equipment and pay for designing, constructing, and running it. When the contract expires, Solect would remove the installation.
According to the committee, average savings on energy costs for a 20-year lease will be $123,000 per year over 20 years, reducing the town’s $438,000 yearly expense by about 23% for a total savings of $2.3 million. PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) and lease payments, and the 30% tax credits, are built into the calculation.
By contrast, the seven-year lease with option to buy would yield a negative cumulative value, –$1.5 million, while the value of a capital purchase was calculated at $1 million.
As for system size, the committee rejected two larger systems with battery storage that had been presented as options at the March sessions and instead proposed a 1.4 MW facility with no battery storage.
It would consist of ground-mounted, 8- to 10-foot solar panels and cover about 4 of the site’s 14 acres. Fencing would surround the installation, with the type of fencing to be determined with the help of the Conservation Commission. Older growth trees in the 120-foot buffer area will not be removed, according to Woodman, and will provide much of the required screening, he said.
In each of three information sessions, Jacob Gates Road residents criticized the project as rushed, ill-placed, and likely to depreciate their homes’ value, though several said they approved of solar power in general. Several attendees wanted to know who would get the tax incentives–the town or the developer. Woodman reframed the question in a brief interview with the Press. “How much Harvard pays for power will be based on the total cost of the project,” which will be reduced by 30% with the tax incentives and thereby yield more favorable rates for the town.
Several people spoke of the site’s value as a wildlife habitat and pleasant place to walk, set as it is among old stone walls and a variety of tall trees. Stow Road resident and biologist Bob Douglas said “gravel pit” was a misnomer for the mature forestland. Both the gravel pit and the Warila land—the other property to be added to the solar overlay district—are either mapped for (Warila) or adjacent to (gravel pit) endangered species, he said. And in his opinion, Douglas told the Press, the two municipal properties targeted for the overlay zone should instead be protected as “an important part of Harvard’s wildlands.”
At the March 25 session, only two people spoke favorably of the project. West Bare Hill Road resident Jessie Panek endorsed the warrant articles. “It’s the approval of an option,” she said, adding, “It’s a very narrow window” in which to address incentives, the zoning, the engineering, and the studies. The window for the town to secure the tax credits closes by July 4 unless Solect and the town sign a credit purchase agreement.
Stow Road resident Joe Schmidt observed that as municipal land, the town could well revisit a 2004 plan to build affordable housing there. And that is still a possibility, said Arielle Jennings, chair of the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. “For now, we felt it was most appropriate to allow the town to fully consider the solar proposal without competing priorities,” she wrote to the Press. But if the town doesn’t proceed or if only part of the land is used, “The trust would assess the remaining parcel for its potential to support housing.“
If Town Meeting rejects articles 25, 26, and 27, the project could not be built. If only article 25 fails, proponents told the Press they would revise the proposal and bring it back to Town Meeting in either the fall (if a meeting is scheduled) or in spring 2027. But Corapcioglu said he hopes the town will pass all the articles. “The gravel pit solar farm is one of several creative, community-driven projects we need to develop together with residents, and losing momentum is a real cost,” he said.
But as the state implements the 2024 Climate Act, said Planning Board Chair John McCormack, the role of overlay districts in solar development are becoming less important: Recent case law has said that building a system outside a solar overlay district can be permissible if the district is found to be too small. The Planning Board has some work to do, McCormack said, to address the law’s requirements. “We currently have no process in place for anything other than the special permit within the overlay district,” he said.
Smith voiced a similar opinion. Noting the state’s new model bylaws for solar development, he said, “The state is moving us toward special permits in the [agricultural-] residential district.”
Slides with detailed information about the proposed project are posted on the Energy Advisory Committee’s webpage, which is accessible from the town website (www.harvard-ma.gov).
Are battery storage systems safe?
At the March 10 and 25 information sessions, proponents presented two plans for consideration: a 3 MW system with battery storage on 7 acres or a 1.5 MW system with optional battery on 3.5 acres. By April 9, the larger system had been dropped altogether in favor of a 1.4 MW system without a battery.
At the March sessions, several people from Jacob Gates Road had objected to battery storage in fear of fire and, in the event of one, the ensuing contamination of a nearby aquifer. Noise generated from the HVAC cooling required for battery systems was also a concern. In response, the committee eliminated the battery storage. “While modern battery technologies are designed to be safe and pose minimal real risk, we have eliminated even the perceived concern by eliminating battery storage for this project,” a slide describing the plan read.
The slide’s claim of advances in battery safety was echoed by Maurice H. Johnson, a senior product manager of batteries and energy storage systems at UL Solutions, a safety standards and testing organization formerly known as Underwriters Laboratories. He is unaffiliated with the project but spoke to the Press about battery safety.
“A lot more is known in just the last 10 years,” he said about battery storage systems. “The standards used to evaluate safety are better, as are all the controls and safety features.” The latest iteration of the standard that tests for thermal fires, UL9540A, he said, “was changed to accommodate fire propagation test data.” Previously, he said, testing would not always yield a fire, making standards less useful. “This is a more purposeful methodology,” Johnson said.
But Johnson said it was important to understand that safety concerns cannot just be focused on batteries: “A lot of good engineering goes into a safe system. It’s called ‘balance of system.’ It’s not always the battery. It’s the integration of all components, the construction, and the installation.”
–VH