Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JULY 22, 2024 11 Julia Cohen, daughter of Hillview Farm owner Natalie Cohen, provides water to sheep grazing at a solar farm in Enfield. we'll ask interrogatories of the project developer. Everything we do with the Siting Council is a balance." Verogy's Enfield project replaced a former golf driving range, not farmland. However, in Southington, a Verogy solar array did displace active agriculture land, which an established farmer had been leasing. In that case, the company also put a grazing project on-site. There have been concerns about the loss of farmland in Connecticut, but not just from solar developments. From 2012 to 2022, Connecticut lost nearly 15.38% of its farms and 14.8% of its farmland, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. As of 2022, the state had just over 5,000 farms and 372,014 acres of farmland, according to the DOA. Community solar The 5.96-megawatt Enfield site is, to date, Connecticut's largest shared clean energy facility, or SCEF, which facilitates solar energy for people who cannot put panels on their own roofs — particularly renters and low-income communities. Eversource, which buys power from the site, has signed up 655 low- to moderate-income customers in environmental justice communities for the power discounts. Enfield High School and 24 small businesses are also subscribers. Fitzgerald says the symbiosis with agriculture makes sense from a busi- ness perspective, but it also appeals to him as someone who is motivated to promote sustainability. "You are either keeping agricul- tural productivity on the land, or in this case (the Enfield project), we're adding it, because it was formerly used as a recreation site," he said. "So, we've added agriculture in that sense, to this land." "We're just really excited to be doing it with a Connecticut farmer who was a sheep farmer first," Fitzgerald said. "And now she has the ability to continue to grow and expand, having access to the land that these projects are on." Before she partnered with Verogy to develop the solar grazing busi- ness, Cohen had just 20 sheep, which she kept mostly for showing and training herding dogs. But the agrivoltaics option has allowed her to expand her flock to currently more than 85 animals. She believes she could expand to up to 250 within the next five years. She says eventually she would like to get her flock to the point where it is viable to bring them to market as lamb. "Most of the consumption of lamb, sheep and goats happens on the East and West Coast, and thousands of animals are imported each month for consumption because we cannot produce those locally," she said. "So, I'm hoping this will be a nice outlet of producing locally raised animals." Her 13-year-old daughter Julia, who has helped her mother with the sheep for several years, is eyeing the site for a potential beehive project that she would like to develop throughout high school. Piece of the puzzle The former driving range site in Enfield is remarkably flat, according to Verogy's Director of Design and Permit- ting Brad Parsons, and that made it just right for a project where the solar panels are not fixed, facing due south, but are actually mounted on racks that allow them to tilt and follow the sun. While they're more expensive to install and have to be spaced a little wider apart, when the math works, they're the best option. "You produce more energy at the end of the day, providing a greater benefit in the same footprint," Parsons said. The company has so far been awarded projects in Connecticut with a total energy capacity of 100.5 MW. Parsons says after the success of the grazing partnership in East Windsor, Verogy started thinking about the Enfield site as one for agrivoltaics early on. "It is one of the options that we significantly look at when we're in the permitting process, mainly because we've got to work with the Depart- ment of Agriculture on some of their requirements," Parsons said. Those include secure perimeter fencing to keep the animals contained, and easy access to water, he said. "Running machinery to cut the grass, just to keep it at a certain height, doesn't really make the most sense," Parsons said, "when we can provide another piece of the puzzle to an industry that maybe doesn't have as much access to land." Building Ideas That Work... We're Connecticut's industry leader in the Design/Build delivery of projects providing full service in-house engineering and general contracting. For more than 80 years, we've provided quality and reliability with design and energy efficient construction. 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CROWLEY FORD, PLAINVILLE SULLIVAN HONDA, TORRINGTON Contact us at 860.482.7613 or visit us at BorghesiBuilding.com 2155 East Main Street Torrington, Connecticut 06790 © 2011 BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. All rights reserved. Butler Manufacturing ™ is a division of BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. SULLIVAN JEEP, TORRINGTON No matter what brand of vehicle you purchase, you want to sure that it is reliable. Choosing a builder should be no different. For more than 80 years, Borghesi Building & Engineering Co., Inc. has provided quality and reliability with design and energy efficient construction. With on time construction, Borghesi Building & Engineering Co., Inc. will create a smooth transition from construction to completion.

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