The Boothbay selectmen placed obstacles in the path of a solar farm that has been approved by the Boothbay planning board, first by charging a $39,204 permit fee, far out of proportion to the $900 permit fee charged by Topsham and $800 fee charged by Thorndike for approximately three times the square feet as the plot in Boothbay.

When the company protested, the selectmen decided to place a six-month moratorium on solar farms so they could work out ordinances. Mr. Lewis claims we don’t need solar farms, we need more housing, and Ms. Roberts claims that solar farms are new to the area, which is only partially true since Boothbay was the subject of a pilot study involving non-wire alternatives during 2013-2015.

I am not an energy tech wizard but this is what I got from reviewing the study called “Non-Wire Alternatives, Boothbay Maine by Convergent.” It was an intervention written in response to CMP’s proposed $15 billion transition line upgrade with $18 million estimated for upgrading the line from Newcastle to Boothbay, which was said to at times exceed its load.

As part of the study, Convergent Energy + Power (Convergent) developed the first energy storage NWA for utility infrastructure right here in Boothbay, which was proven to be cost-efficient and doable and became the model for other places but at that time Boothbay did not have enough of a peak hour overload to justify the investment here.

However, Boothbay is now the location of one of the state’s first concentrated housing zones that will increase our population by at least 20%, which will increase the load on our power transmission lines. Mr. Lewis says that isn’t enough housing, we need more which requires either upgrading our transmission lines or using NWA’s, which are more cost-efficient and lower our carbon emissions.

Reworking our ordinances is a good thing to do. I submit that ordinances should also be reworked regarding concentrated housing zones requiring them to be energy efficient and to be charged a fee if they create too large a burden on our energy infrastructure.

Susan M. Andersen

Boothbay