Public hearing set for solar power facility at former Cutchogue landfill

A proposal to construct a 20-acre commercial solar power facility at the former Cutchogue landfill was deemed complete by the Southold Town Planning Board during a Feb. 10 meeting. A public hearing on the plan will be held March 10 at 5 p.m.

The Southold Town Board originally approved a bid from Summit Ridge Energy to construct a 3.5-megawatt solar array and 1 megawatt battery storage facility at the Cutchogue Municipal Landfill in August 2020. The battery facility was ultimately removed from the plans. 

Summit Ridge Energy is based in Arlington, Va., with offices in New York City and Chicago. The company currently services more than 50,000 residential and commercial customers. 

“Use of closed solid waste landfills for [photovoltaic] solar projects is a practical end use that also yields renewable energy,” according to New York State Department of Environmental Conservation policy.

Summit Ridge Energy had submitted a previous building permit application, which was denied late last year, because commercial-scale solar arrays require a special exception from the Planning Board, per Southold Town zoning code. 

The landfill is located at 6155 Cox Lane, Cutchogue which is within the town’s Light Industrial zoning district. The facility was used for the disposal of municipal solid waste, refuse, debris and scavenger waste until 1993 when it was closed and capped. It sits adjacent to the town’s current composting facility, waste transfer and recycling station. The solar array would be built atop the capped landfill.

The solar project will include roughly 7,900, 8-foot solar panels, two inverters and two transformers that will have a generating capacity of 4.60 megawatts direct current or 3.06 megawatts alternating current, according to a Jan. 23 special exception site plan application prepared by TRC Environmental Corporation — a consulting, engineering and construction management firm based in Windsor, Conn.

The solar panels will be built in two arrays on either side of an existing gravel access road and will be mounted on concrete ballasts so the landfill cap “will not be disturbed,” according to the TRC document. Each panel has an expected life span of roughly 30 years.

The arrays will be surrounded by an 8-foot fence with a locked gate and a new access drive and turn around area will be built for emergency vehicle access. The gates will be accessible to emergency responders through a KnoxBox — a padlock system that uses a master key.

The project will be remotely monitored 24/7, and on-site inspections will be routinely conducted by a third-party operations and maintenance provider, according to the project’s long-term maintenance plan. Regular inspections will be scheduled and conducted by licensed technicians at least twice a year. 

“This contractor is also tasked to actively monitor the facility and its real time production to notice any anomalies and/or equipment alarms which would be a cause for concern,” TRC wrote in the long-term maintenance plan. “In these instances, the contractor has processes and response windows in which to respond to mitigate any health and safety risk, and to ensure the facility is back to operating at its fullest capacity as quickly as possible.”

Several segments of native species plantings are proposed to serve as barriers along the western, eastern and southern sides of the site between the solar arrays and nearby residential properties — the closest of which are roughly 400 feet from the internal fence line. This will reduce any noise from the inverters and transformers, which will be located roughly 250 to 300 feet from its fence line, according to the TRC proposal documents. 

The First Baptist Church of Cutchogue is roughly 500 feet from the proposed fenceline surrounding the solar facility and roughly 850 feet from the concrete pads where the noise-producing elements will be located. 

Additional barriers of native plants will also be installed along the southeast and southwest boundaries of the site to minimize visual impacts from Route 48 and nearby residences. 

“Solar panels are designed to be nonreflective and to capture as much incident light as possible,” TRC wrote in the site plan application. In the same section, TRC cited the Federal Aviation Administration’s determination that reflective glare produced by solar panels is similar to glare produced “from bodies of water, buildings with glass facades or parking lots, and [is] not likely to be a nuisance.” 

“When visible from roadways, drivers will likely have a similar experience,” TRC stated.