TAX NEWS - June 2010
Massachusetts Tax: Solar project planned in Williamstown
The $10 million plan came as a welcome surprise to town officials who granted a waiver that should help expedite the application to the public service board.
"This is a clean, renewable project. There really is nothing negative about it," Williamstown Town Manager Garrett Earls said.
The Williamstown solar farm would be a 2.1 megawatt project made up of 9,000 solar panels and could eventually generate enough power for upwards of 400 homes annually.
"This type of project is big for us because it helps with the tax base," Earls said. "Clearly there will be property tax revenue off of this project that'll be quite a bit more than if it was just a residential. You'd have to have quite a development to compete with those tax dollars. So it's good for the town, it helps ease the tax burden in these tough times."
The project is one of four major solar farms currently on the drawing board around the state and was made possible, in large part, by a first-in-the-nation state incentive that guaranteed companies a generous subsidized price for their power of 30 cents a kilowatt hour.
"There was a convergence of state policies that really just made the opportunity right for these developers to come in and develop these large solar projects," said Andrew Perchlick of the Vt. Clean Energy Development Fund.
Solar companies raced to get in line to take advantage of the limited subsidy.
"If you can really make use of all the tax credits-- if you have the tax liability, you can use the federal tax credit, the state tax credit and get the guaranteed price for your electricity, then the economics work well and people want to develop these projects," Perchlick said.
Along with the Williamstown farm developers hope to convert the old Green Mountain Racetrack in Pownal into a solar farm. A solar project on Dubois Street in South Burlington and a large project in Sharon are also moving forward.
Perchlick says that if the experience with these initial projects is positive and the public appetite remains high, the state could see about 5 percent of electricity needs being met by solar in the coming years-- part of a larger renewable energy portfolio.
"I think we're doing well for the size of the state we have and the budget that we have," Perchlick said. "We're out there in front -- being the first state in the nation to pass the standard offer, the feed and tariff, and that helps us, and we have solar companies looking to move to Vermont."
While federal tax credits will stick around, the deadline for the state incentives expire in July and that has created a competition among solar companies to get in line and a backlog of applications at the Public Service Board.
If the permitting and financing process works out, the Massachusetts developer hopes to be building the solar farm here by the end of the year.
© 2009-2012 TaxRates.cc
2011 - 2012 Tax Rate Guide and Tax Help Website
