Solar Farm in Coventry!
Excellent news for Coventry! Allco Renewable Energy, of New York, has chosen Coventry as a location for a 90-acre, 8-megawatt solar farm. The exact location is the former Picillo pig farm, 8-acres of which was declared to be so polluted that is was a Superfund site in the 1980s.
The agreement with the town gives Allco a 50-year lease to use the site. Allco has agreed to pay the town $200,000 a year or 4 percent of the electricity sales, whichever is greater, with future increases corresponding to the rise of inflation.
The project will be paid for completely by Allco, without the town incurring any financial liability. The project, however, is contingent on passage of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, a proposal submitted by Rep. Ray Sullivan (D-Coventry). The legislation, dubbed “feed-in tariff,” would require National Grid to purchase renewable energy from Rhode Island producers (i.e. Allco). The rate will be set by the Public Utility Commission.
The important issue is that developing a clean solar farm is a step in the right direction to alleviate Rhode Island’s dependence on fossil fuels for energy production. Since 2000 the country has seen the price of oil skyrocket from about $25 per barrel to over $100 per barrel. And while oil is only a small part of the energy production pie (coal and natural gas), the rise in oil prices is indicative to the general trend of higher energy prices.
With renewable energy, the cost won’t go up. Rhode Islanders don’t have to worry about another war in the Middle East, increased consumption by China, India, or Russia, or diminishing global supplies. If anything, the more development of renewable technology will only bring the cost of production down.
Of course not everyone is happy. Rep. Nick Gorham (R-Coventry) isn’t happy. He thinks building a solar farm is dumb because Rhode Island isn’t the best spot in the country to produce solar energy.
So, the choice before everyone is as follows: develop renewable energy in the state, provide green-collar jobs for the construction and maintenance of the solar farm, and produce enough clean, pollution-free energy to supply a small town, OR do nothing, keep doing things they way everyone’s been doing it and hope that the world doesn’t fall apart.
