Solar farm gets warm welcome in Chester

By Jim McConnell, Chesterfield Observer

“We are not the megasite.”

With those five words, Torch Clean Energy president Jon Kilberg evoked laughter and applause from some of the roughly 100 Chesterfield residents who attended a community meeting June 25 on his company’s plan to develop 1,675 acres in south Chester for use as a hybrid solar farm and data center.

He struck a reassuring tone from the outset of the 90-minute gathering at Ironbridge Church, which was far less contentious than any of the meetings the county’s economic development authority hosted last year to solicit citizen feedback about its since-withdrawn south Chester megasite proposal.

“We’ve heard a lot about [the megasite] since we’ve started looking at this project about six months ago,” said Kilberg, a Virginia native who founded the Colorado-based renewable energy company in 2006.

“We hope it addresses what you all were concerned about with that project: It’s lower impact, it doesn’t have the [volume of] traffic, it’s not truly an industrial use. It will be a substantial taxpayer to the county, yet it will use very few county services.”

Torch Clean Energy is a privately held company that develops and finances renewable energy facilities in the United States. To date, the company has created projects that generate more than 500 megawatts of renewable energy – including the 101-megawatt Red Horse facility in Cochise County, Arizona, which is one of the nation’s largest wind-solar hybrid systems.

Its plan for the Chester Solar Technology Park is to build a 150-megawatt solar farm on about 500 acres and sell 300 acres for development of a maximum of 1 million square feet of data center space.

“Data centers want renewable energy, particularly the big players: Facebook, Amazon and Google,” said Sara Born, a project manager for Torch. “They want to power these data centers with non-fossil-fuel-based energy. That’s part of the reason this project is happening – to meet that demand.”

The company holds option agreements to purchase the two parcels that make up the 1,675-acre site south of state Route 10, contingent upon the Board of Supervisors approving the rezoning application it filed last month with the county’s Planning Department.

Its zoning case is scheduled to be heard by the Chesterfield Planning Commission on July 16. In advance of that public hearing, Kilberg and Born answered citizens’ questions for more than an hour last Tuesday night.

The Torch officials insisted their project is not a “Trojan horse” or gateway to another, less desirable type of development in the densely populated residential area.

They also noted that, under the proffered conditions they’ve submitted as part of the zoning case, they will dedicate right of way to the county for its planned East-West Freeway only after the solar farm is decommissioned. That could be 35 years from now or longer.

Building the megasite would have involved constructing the initial 2½-mile stretch of the freeway – and by extension, opening mostly rural southern Chesterfield to development. That was one of the major reasons citizens so vehemently opposed the EDA’s megasite plan after it was introduced in August 2017.

Mike Uzel, founder of the Chester-based citizen group Bermuda Advocates for Responsible Development, said Torch’s proposal “makes a heck of a lot more sense” than either an industrial megasite or the 5,000 residential units permitted under the property’s current zoning.

“That property is going to be developed into something at some point. This seems to be the least impactful on the surrounding residents,” he added.

Murti Khan, a member of BARD and the Democratic Party nominee for the Bermuda District’s seat on the Board of Supervisors, thanked Kilberg and Born at last week’s community meeting for being so accessible to the public.

“I hope that in working through this project, we’ll be able to find a deal in which citizens’ concerns are respected and both the citizens and the company can come to good terms,” he said. “However, if we’re not able to get to that point, how long are you willing to work on the conditions before moving forward with the final rezoning?”

“It’s our hope we can address people’s concerns in a timely fashion and continue on the path we’re on,” Kilberg replied. “We do not have a tremendous amount of time to consternate back and forth.”