The Oak Bluffs select board voted this week to include a $750,000 borrowing article for a new solar farm on the October special town meeting warrant. 

Plans to build the solar panels and battery storage facility at the town’s capped landfill go back several years and approval at the Oct. 29 special town meeting would allow it to move forward with a request for proposals, which would solicit vendors for the project.

The project was developed by the town, Eversource and the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC), and was included in Eversource’s capital investment plan in 2024. 

According to Beth Greenblatt, the managing director at Beacon Integrated Solutions, the company consulting the town on the project, CVEC stated that they would not proceed with the project after the investment plan was approved because there was no active lease or purchase agreement regarding the power.

In order to move forward, Oak Bluffs will have to execute an interconnection services agreement. Doing so requires payment. Eversource estimates the cost at $585,000 with a potential increase or decrease of 25 per cent. The $750,000 question now on the special town meeting agenda includes that potential increase.

“In my experience, the estimation of these project costs have been much been on target by Eversource,” Ms. Greenblatt told the select board on Tuesday evening.

According to Ms. Greenblatt, $357,000 of the cost is outlined in Eversource’s capital investment plan to help support upgrades needed for the Oak Bluffs solar farm and for other projects to be connected to the system. She also told the select board that the interconnection services agreement has been reviewed and approved by the Department of Public Utilities.

“That’s all to say that there’s not a lot of room for negotiation,” Ms. Greenblatt said. She added that every project that generates renewable energy and wants to connect to utility distribution has to sign a version of this agreement.

“Everybody has to pay this fee. This isn’t a fee to the town of Oak Bluffs by themselves,” said select board member Dion Alley. “We would be adding pretty close to a megawatt of green electricity to the Island…It’s good for the town. It’ll be good for the Island from a resiliency [stand point], having electricity generated here on the Island.”

The Oak Bluffs select board approved a request for proposal for the project in June. The proposal stated that the minimum requirement for the project will be 250 kilowatts.

Ms. Greenblatt said although the agreement and the request for proposal are not tied together in a legal sense, the proposal will only go out after the special town meeting in October.

“We want to be able to tell developers the status of things,” she told the Gazette Wednesday.

If voters do not authorize the payment, the town’s agreement with Eversource cannot go forward. For the town to complete the project without the agreement, the project would have to be submitted for approval again.