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THE SUN CHRONICLE
Norton welcomes solar farm
Friday, August 28, 2009 2:20 AM EDT
NORTON - Norton has joined Attleboro in welcoming a solar energy farm.
Selectmen supported a letter of intent Thursday night to lease as much as 20 acres of Norton's capped Hill Street landfill to Ansar Energy LLC.
The Scituate alternative energy firm is developing a 50 megawatt, $350 million photovoltaic solar project, covering 10 to 12 Bay State sites, including Norton and Attleboro, Ansar President Junaid Yasin said.
Ansar would pay Norton $10,000 to $15,000 per acre per year, totalling $200,000 to $300,000 annually in rent, taxes and other fees, Yasin said.
Construction is expected to start by 2011 and take no more than six months, he said. The entire $350 million project will take about two years to build, he said. "This probably will be the largest project in the U.S., outside of California," Yasin said. "There's been a lot of talk about other projects. Very few of them actually happen."
Ansar also is negotiating agreements with National Grid to sell the utility the electricity generated by his project, he said.
He will negotiate leases with the landowners after completing due diligence on the sites.
Selectmen and the board of health support Yasin's plans.
"Obviously, this is the wave of the future. It's exciting to know that Norton is part of this new trend," Selectmen Vice Chairman Robert Kimball Jr. said.
Voters at the June special town meeting authorized selectmen to lease the Hill Street site for a solar project.
Yasin also has a signed letter of intent in Attleboro, for more than 20 acres of former cranberry bog behind the Four Seasons Riding School on Lindsey Street.
Yasin said he is taking these letters of intent to "leading banks in New York" to secure financing for his project, which has been in the works for more than a year.
"Now we seem to be on a path to move this concept into reality," Yasin said. |
