Hersey, Maine Targeted for 5,000 Acre Solar Project

The residents don’t want it, but the State has legislated energy goals. Who wins?

A 5,000 acre solar project in Hersey, Maine has been proposed by Next Phase Energy Services.

I looked up the land area of Hersey, and according to Wikipedia it has 39.86 square miles. The square mile equivalent to 5,000 acres is 7.8125 square miles. So this project would cover nearly 20% of the land in Hersey. The Timberland Solar Project (ironic) would be located off Route 11 - the Aroostook Scenic Highway (also ironic) and would cover one-fifth of the land area of the town. But policy makers in Augusta say that this is for our own good.

(The pin in the image above is to note the location of Hersey and is not representative of the location of the project.)

Five Thousand Acres for 144MW

How much energy would this 5,000 acre project produce? Developers say “up to" 1000MW”, but the amount of electricity produced is different than the amount of electricity that can be transmitted, and without new transmission infrastructure, that energy isn’t going anywhere. The project to build transmission infrastucture in northern Maine has been on pause since the PUC cancelled the procurement in December, 2023. (The PUC is still legislatively required to issue another request for bidding on the transmission line project).

Let’s do some math to see how much electricity this 5,000 acre project might actually produce. I’ll walk you through it. The developers say they can produce as much as 1,000 MW with this project. The math ratio that we’ve heard on the street is that to get 1MW of solar power you need to develop 5 acres of land, so that part holds up. But will the project actually produce 1000MW?

(Photo is of the Milo Maine solar project.)

Let’s look at the data from a nearby solar project in Milo, Maine. According to US Energy Atlas, the Milo solar project is rated to produce 20MW. Data from 2023 shows that Milo produced a total of 25,237 megawatt hours of energy (MWh). To figure out how many megawatts that is, we divide the number of MWh by the number of hours in the period of time (one year = 8,760 hours). That gives us 2.88 megawatts. So over 100 acres in Milo was developed to produce less than 3 megawatts of electricity. The project has a capacity of 20MW, but only produced 2.88MW, which is 14.4% of the capacity listed. That 14.4% is a typical capacity factor of solar in Maine given our northern location and the angle of the sun. To summarize the Milo solar project:

Milo Nameplate Rating = 20MW
Milo Capacity factor = 14.4%
Milo Actual Production (2023) = 2.88MW

Now we’ll apply that to the project that is proposed in Hersey. While Hersey is 55 miles north of Milo, I’ll use the same capacity factor to make things easier.
Hersey Nameplate Rating x Capacity Factor = 1000MW x 14.4% = 144MW

By cutting down 5,000 acres of trees we might get 144MW of electricity. And keep in mind that the capacity factor drops every year as the equipment ages.

Can you imagine what this project will do to property value in the area? What it will do to the local environment and wildlife?