SANDWICH – Sandwich residents will vote on a zoning amendment that allows construction of a 1.5 megawatt solar project at special town meeting next month.
Tom Atkins, Senior Development Director for NRG Energy Inc., owner of the canal power plant, said the installation will not be visible to people outside the Canal Electric site.
“People are always curious, what is this going to look like, you cannot see the solar project from almost anywhere around it,” said Atkins. “We went and did a visual analysis and took many different photographs that determine what the solar project would look like.”
The Selectmen-backed plan would allow for the construction of the ground mounted solar project off Tupper Road.
That area is currently zoned as Business Limited-1.
“There’s an existing infrastructure there to support it already, including existing fuel storage, existing gas pipelines, an existing electrical substation which allows us to add this particular piece of equipment without making any offsite improvements,” said Atkins.
NRG plans to have the solar project ready a year from now.
Atkins also gave a presentation at a recent Selectmen’s meeting that included a proposal for the construction of a 350-megawatt unit fueled by natural gas.
Atkins said the unit works like a jet engine and will be able to go up to 350 megawatts in 10 minutes.
Construction on that project could start in July 2017 and be operating by June 2019.
By JUSTIN SAUNDERS, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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