 Okay, we are now recording and the public has been allowed into the meeting space. Great well thank you everybody for being here and welcome to the town of Amherst. Solar bylaw working group meeting for November 18 2022. And we have a quorum and thank everybody for being here and we'll get going on the agenda. And let me first start off by thanking Dan for his minutes that we'll review in a moment from last week. Last meeting, and Martha, is she Martha here. Martha's not here. At least not yet anyway. Yeah, okay. As a as a warning, Jack, you're on deck next if, if Martha doesn't make it here shortly, is that would that work with you. You're on on mute. Yeah, I just want to get my template that I use last. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, we'll start slow. Okay. Martha, or, or, or then you're on. Okay, all right. Okay, let me. Uncover my agenda somewhere buried in my windows. Okay. Yep. Okay, so excellent first order of business then is to review the minutes from November 4 meeting, which Stephanie has distributed in our packet. And have people been had a chance to review those. And are there any comments. Or, or request for revisions on those minutes hearing none. Is there a motion to accept the minutes from November 4. I'll make the motion to accept the minutes from November 4. Laura. And Janet will second it. Thank you. Okay, we need a voice vote. In no particular order. Breger. Yes. Gemsack. I will pass. I'm staying. I'm saying, sorry. Brooks. Yes. McGowan. Yes. Peg Lea Rulo. And Corcoran. Yes. Okay. Minutes are approved. Great. I'm getting a phone call from Martha Hanner. So I'm going to go ahead and. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. This is Chris. Hold on. Hold on. There we go. Sorry about that. Yeah, I don't see an email from her or anything. So we'll learn, learn what's going on. Okay. Let me, before we jump into the next agenda item and wait for Chris to get back. Where's Laura? Laura, are you. I apologize. We haven't sort of had the opportunity to opportunity to conclude your presentation on, on, on solar development. From that we started, I think two meetings ago. Would you be prepared to formally or informally just continue that conversation and lead us through that material. Laura, you're, you're. Sorry. I don't have, I don't have further like slides to go through necessarily, but I'm happy to take any questions that people have based on the last presentation. I know we didn't have time for any dialogue. Okay. Okay. And we'll get to that then later in the agenda. As it's, as it's pointed out. Chris, yeah, please. So Martha is on the line. She's saying that she can see us, but she can't be seen by us. She doesn't know what the problem is. So Stephanie, can you work some magic and let Martha in or maybe send her a better link or something. I apologize. I'm letting her in now. Yeah. I apologize. Somehow you must have used the agenda. Link to the meeting. So she ended up as an attendee. So sorry about that. Oh, good. Okay. Great. I figured I just go ahead and do the minutes and she can do next week. I already got it kind of go on here. Okay. Okay. Okay. Great. And I'll give you a chance to get settled. Okay. So I'll make note of that in my. Okay. So you took. So I'm trying to promote Martha to a panelist before you go any further. So Martha, I think you just have to accept. You should get a prompt and then you need to accept. All right. Welcome Martha. Good to have you. I've been trying to get in since. 1120. Well, those first 10 minutes, you would have had a hard time because we hadn't started yet. Sorry about that. Okay. Martha just Jack is going to be you were on board on tap to do the minutes this time, but we got started a little bit and Jack is set up to do it. Oh, okay. Sorry, Jack. No, no, no problem. Yeah. What comes around goes around. So you'll be on. On board for doing it next time, Martha. Yeah. So our next time is the 1st, 2nd of December. Is it? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. Great. Okay. So let's continue down the agenda. Now to a staff updates. Starting with Stephanie. Sure, real quick assessment update. I've met again with GZA with Adrian one on one. Just to get an update on what they're doing. And as I mentioned before, there's a subgroup of us working. It's Dwayne. Chris Brestrup myself and Mike Warner from our IT department. Meeting with Adrian and her. And we're going to have a meeting with the IT person on their end. To sort of figure out how to get the data. So we do. Finally have the methodology identified. I think I may have reported this at the last meeting that we're going with a grid. Based approach versus parcel approach, which will give us more information. And more opportunity. And then we have a meeting with the department heads. So that quit that went out to all of the department heads. Their feedback is due by, I believe. Next week. And then we are going to have a follow up meeting with them. The following week. So just to get some response back from the questions and also just some of their input on the, on the process as well. And then other two other quick updates. Chris Baskham from the Amherst fire department. I would be a suggestion as a next expert presentation. So we can invite Chris to come and talk about battery storage. And how the, what the regulations are. Relating to battery storage. And then also another thing to update you on. As I mentioned earlier, yesterday I forwarded the KP law responses to your questions. As well as a presentation. And I think it is probably the same presentation that I did last night with the. The zoning. Zoning board of appeals group, but I think you all had very specific questions that they answered. So what the recommendation is, is that before our next meeting on December 2nd. That you review their responses. And I think we'll have a couple of questions or. Comments to that meeting on December 2nd. And Jonathan Murray should be meeting with us. Great. All right. Anything else, Stephanie. Nope, that's my update for today. Okay. Before we go to Janet, I will supplement. Stephanie's updates to inform everybody that. Stephanie. We'll did some tremendous scissors the other day. At the town landfill. And I think it's a great. For the, for the four megawatt solar project on the landfill, which was a great. The celebration of the end of a huge amount of work that I'd learn more about in terms of the. Trials and tribulations in the, and often the path for solar development along these lines, but it was a great celebration of the town's work and Stephanie's work. And the. Beginning of this, of the commercial operation of this project. So congratulations to the town and to Stephanie on that. Thanks. Janet. Congratulations. Definitely. I'm, I think in the, they described the succession of like companies, which gave me like a funny, like I thought, oh my God, you know, so I appreciate just the hanging in there. And, you know, the capacity of, of you. I have like two questions and I went, I went to the DOER. State regional or local meeting on the so statewide solar assessment, which I thought was going to be very technical. But it did have a very brief presentation of what. Do we are is doing, and then it became kind of a focus group on, you know, different points of view. So. And I think that was a great question. Which also was interesting. I did ask a question because the DOER is doing their statewide. So their assessment parcel by parcel. And so. And so I did ask a question is like, is that preferred over the grid based? And unfortunately didn't really get an answer. They just said, that's what we're doing. And I think the impression I got from. How they presented it was the reason to go parcel by parcel is that the grid based analysis is not compatible. So, you know, with the grid based analysis, and zoning districts and, you know, all these different factors cover, you know, you know, tree cover. That actually gives you what's really available, you know, shorter rezoning your town or combining parcels. And so that made me wonder. Like, should we go with the grid based. Analysis. And if we do, is that compatible? Like, can that be converted very easily to parcel by parcel? Yeah. I mean, it's a matter of scale. It would not make sense for the state to necessarily go grid by grid. I mean, because you have to, you have to determine the size. When we, when we looked at parcels versus grid, we, we tried to look at. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, we tried to look at what gave us the most information and then what's the size of the grid scale that we could get down to that's workable, that's usable and, you know, makes sense. So, you know, if you did, you wouldn't want to do like 10 feet by 10 feet. That doesn't make any sense at all. It's way too small. It's way too different. And also. I mean, we're looking at just our town. And so all of those other. Setbacks and things are going to be, you know, that's kind of like the next step. So at first they're using this grid to identify just. Where does it look feasible? And then they go back and then they apply those other things like setbacks and. And some of that other is like a next. You know, they need to be able to get in more. So they'll be refining it. That wasn't, it was just. Just to, as a place to start. So I think it, you know, it's a matter of scale is would be my first response to that. Okay. That's helpful. Okay. And the second question I had. I'm not sure if we're going to talk about this now, because you brought it up, but I thought it was later. Is when I was reading the GZ a. I thought, you know, we're part of the part of the work RFP. And also the UMass extension says that's super useful. And it also said that they would go three times to talk to the department heads. And I just was sort of. Wondering why that was that choice was made or if that's still in play, because it seems like. As much as department heads, I think. Yeah. That's the proposal. I mean, just because it's their proposal doesn't mean that's exactly what it's all going to, how it's all going to play out things. These things get tweaked as we go along. As long as it doesn't substantially change the work that we're doing for the project, you can, you can sort of massage things a little bit to make them work more for your purposes. So for instance, I think we've added. I don't, you know, the focus group idea was something that they sort of threw out there, but that wasn't necessarily what we were probably going to do. We do have community outreach. That will be happening and we'll be talking more about what that's going to look like, but. At least, you know, we haven't had any real huge discussion about that, but just initially they've now added a third. We were going to do two community sessions. We're now going to do three. And the idea is to make sure that there's. American Sign Language provided Spanish translation. A traditional Chinese translation. We're going to make sure that we actually go to where people are to find a more. You know, a better location that serves people. We wouldn't be asking people to come to town hall. We're going to probably do them online as well or do like a hybrid approach. There's going to be child care. Probably some food offered, like, you know, all of these things that because we've done, you know, when we worked on the. The MVP process and the climate action plan where we had some really great turnout. Those are all the things that were identified as ways in which we really get more direct community participation. And some of the groups that we'll be working with are people that work with like the rental community. I have the, I'm connected to the whole food justice network and I can tell you that anything that I've been involved in that we've done with the food justice network, like we had a ribbon, I'm not a ribbon cutting. I'm sorry. A harvest celebration at the community garden at Fort River of harm. We had 40 people and once again, I've never seen a more diverse group. I mean, we literally, we had, we had folks that were Muslim. We had African Americans, Asian Indian young people, old people. We had crafts provided. You know, we just, we ran the gamut. Like we just, there was so much that engaged people. And I think learning from those ways of bringing people in are the things that we want to bring to this meeting. So we also talked about even having crafts available for like kids, you know, people with young children to make sure that they have something that will engage the children. So, and doing it at different times. So just to know that those things all came up. So I don't know about the focus groups specifically. I mean, I think that's part of what all of this community outreaches about is basically working with the, you know, working with the community. So, so when I read this reading through the UMass extension, like Duane's group, it said that focus groups are really important and they had actual scripts on how they could be done. And so I, to me, it seemed like a really important element, like bringing different parts of the community and different points of view and having a discussion. They thought it said that that's a lot of comes out of that. And so I think it'd be great if GZA does that. On the other hand, we sort of have a template on the UMass extension website. And I think we could, if, if that's too much for GZA to do, I would be interested if we could sort of sponsor that working with the league as a facility, because I have trained facilitators and setting up like two or three focus groups and just seeing what we learned from that. And so, you know, maybe we should, you know, put this in a parking lot for another discussion, but I'd hate to lose those kind of deeper, more fruitful discussions, particularly amongst people who don't particularly agree, because I could see from the DOR, DOER discussion a lot came out and there were areas of commonality and areas of concern. And then questions that people had, like more information, people saw it. So I would love for GZA to do focus groups, but I think if they don't have it in the grant, I think we could do it or I'd be happy to kind of help put that together working with the league and the template that's on the UMass website that just, I mean, it's all just sort of sitting there as a package. So. Yeah, I think we can certainly recommend to them about, you know, like I said, they haven't, we're having the discussion, but it was a very quick, it was one of those things where we were kind of at the end of our meeting, Adrienne brought it up for a topic for our next discussion and we just started launching and came up with all of these things in a very short time. So we haven't even had the in depth conversation about that. So I will talk to her about the focus groups and sort of doing that as focus groups or in addition, we can, we can talk about that. So I'll send you those links. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, Janet. Yeah, thanks, Janet. We'll go to Martha. Yeah. Yes. Okay. And if you could put your hand down just so I can keep track. Yes, a few things now based on the discussion. I also went to that DOER session that Janet did, and it was quite interesting. And so a question about that that doesn't have to be answered now is then trying to figure out how our local survey would fit in with what the DOER is doing statewide and, you know, how local are they and so on, but that doesn't need an answer now. And then Stephanie, again, congratulations on wielding the scissors. And I was wondering if perhaps maybe at the next meeting, you could give just a brief summary of that, that landfill solar, just, you know, again, how many megawatts, what's the array like, who gets the electricity and what are the arrangements? You know, Dave Zomek said, you know, in town is going to really benefit financially. And just a brief summary like that, I think would be appreciated if you could. I'd be happy to. Thank you for giving a little more detail about the outreach and so on that's being planned and just occurs to me to wonder whether in one of your discussions that you have with them, you might be willing to include a couple of us just, you know, as part of a brainstorming session, not any sense of directives, but just as part of the discussion and any ideas we might have. Yep, I can, I can check in with Adrian about that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you do it. And just as an FYI, just in terms of how it could be, maybe one other person, but probably not too, because once you identify people as doing that kind of specific work, it becomes a subcommittee. And then we have to advertise and post a meeting. And so I would say if there's, you know, you know, one of you, we all can decide. So can I give one thing? I just wanted to bring up real quick Dwayne, which came to me as we were at the solar landfill event. I know we've talked about having doing a tour of like a battery storage. And I think at this time of year now, it's getting so crazy and weekends are going to be tight, but it's really accessible at the solar land at the transfer station, the battery storage. When you're coming in the driveway, just before you sort of go to the right to park at the transfer station, you can see a big fenced area and there's these cabinets. That's the battery storage. It's right there. So it's really accessible and very easy. And I will say that when I was there, the inverters were running and there was a very, very low slight hum to it, but that's as loud as it ever gets. So if you do hear something, that's like the maximum noise level you'll hear. So anyway, I just wanted to point that out because I think it's really easy. People could just go on their own whenever the transfer station is open and just sort of park and just walk over and take a look. You can't obviously go in and I wouldn't go right up to the gate, but you can certainly stand there and take a look. All right, great. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I don't even notice that and I go to the transfer station all the time. Good to know. Keep my eyes out. Another thing to look for at the transfer station. All right. Any other. Questions or comments for Stephanie. Great. Okay. So let's move on to Chris. If you have any updates from, from the planning department. Yeah. A couple of things just to reiterate Stephanie's. I'm going to go ahead and speak with you on planning staff and conservation staff met with him yesterday morning. And he had a lot to say about. Some of the hazard mitigation that needs to be. Thought about with regard to batteries in particular. And we have the wetlands administrator there and more in Pollock, who's the GZA staff liaison and myself. And I think the building commissioner. It was really a very interesting conversation. We learned a lot of things about the fire department and how they will manage any emergencies that may occur there. And also it was reassuring to know that they are going through training. All the cities and towns in Massachusetts are being offered training for their fire departments to become familiar with some of these issues and how to deal with them. So, yes, please do invite Chris Baskham to come, but it's, it's an evolving topic, you know, and there. It's not really there are definitive answers to everything, but people are trying very hard to keep up with changing things. The second thing I wanted to mention was Jonathan Murray last night training for the zoning board of appeals and the zoning board of appeals is going to be reviewing. We're going to be reviewing some solar proposals prior to when we finish our work here and have a solar bylaw available. So his, his presentation was very good. I think Janet was there as an attendee. Dwayne was also there as an attendee. All the members. Jack was there. Yeah. So if we are able to watch that, if you, if we are able to attend would want to watch that presentation. I think that would be really helpful to you and Jonathan Murray is very knowledgeable about this topic. The other thing I wanted to mention too is that one of the, well, one of the things he mentioned, two of the things he mentioned that I found particularly interesting were that the battery storage standalone battery storage is not considered to be exempt from zoning the way solar arrays are considered to be exempt. So if a stand, if a battery storage is connected to a solar array that's actually collecting energy from the sun, then it is exempt under section three of chapter 40 a from, you know, more rigid regulations. But if it's a standalone battery storage, it's not exempt. So we can really look at those very carefully and make, make sure that everything is done, and then we can go back to our requirements. And there was one other thing that I wanted to mention. Oh yeah, that he, he suggested that we make our bylaw clearly in support of solar installations rather than, you know, strictly regulating them, because if you show that you are actually being promoting of solar installations as well as regulating them, you get farther in the state courts. So I thought that was interesting. And the other thing to mention is something that Janet's brought up several times, which is this nexus question of making sure that any regulations that we put in our bylaw and any conditions that the zoning board of appeals composes on these things have a clear connection to health safety and welfare and his point that he made a few times was that health safety and welfare can be different for different towns. So we have to determine what we think is important in those regards. And I think Janet offered to write a statement to that effect and she may have offered that at the last solar bylaw working group meeting. And that would be helpful to, to get, get that going. So I guess that's, that's it. We've been doing research and studying and trying to find out as much as we can about both solar arrays and solar battery storage. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, Jack. Yeah, I was going to say that I, with regard to the public welfare, because I think human health and, you know, safety, we all understand that public welfare is a little bit more nebulous. But I provided, you know, the section from the Massachusetts contingency plan where we have to speak to it as an LSP, we have to speak to it. And I just want to make sure everybody got that. I sent that several weeks ago. It was sent out to everybody. Okay. It was forwarded along. So it's probably in one of the packets. And what I could do is add it to this packet as well. Yeah. Okay. And probably I most likely put it in the resources folder as well. So I have a tendency to put those types of things in the resource folder. Great. Thanks, Jack. And I'll also mention just because it connects with Jack, I think as well as that we did. And I'm not, this has not been distributed yet to the whole group. But I think we are in. Just an hour ago or so of receipt of the updated, updated and final paper coming from the water. And we have a, a, a, a supply protection committee. That we commented on. And the Jack gave us a preview of, and then we made some comments on it. Some questions and requests for some additional detail. And so we did just receive or the town just received a. A final version of that report. Which I presume Stephanie will maybe distribute for. I haven't looked at it yet. But appreciate. The, the. Wsp sees work on that and Jack, you're, you're helping in moving that forward. Okay. Great. Agenda here. Great. Okay. So before we move on to sort of the bylaw. Any updates from any of the committees that we represent? I don't really have one from. Anybody else? I don't have anything from the planning board really. Yep, Jack. You stole my thunder. Okay. Sorry. I didn't. I should have been looking at my agenda. But we did approve it. Yeah. You name us. Oh, okay. Yeah, awesome. Okay. Good to know. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, so let's move on to the next portion of the agenda, which is really looking at the bylaw itself and review of any drafts that are available. As meeting by meeting, I. Would look to Chris for any, any updates of any language to review. That being said, I'm not necessarily expecting. New draft each meeting. Because obviously Chris and her department has to plan that out and have the. Time and availability to, to, to do that. So I'm not sure if we have any new sections to review. This meeting, but Chris, could you maybe just give us an update on that status. We don't have any new sections to review, but we do have a revised. Purpose and intent. And so I'd like to go over that with you. Great. And that was actually the way the agenda was laid out to first re-review and maybe not quite put to bed, but. Tuck in a little bit. The, the purpose at intense section that we. Spend some time on last time. So thank you. Chris. So I took from the minutes of the last meeting as well as my own and that's how I went about. Revising this so we can go through a paragraph by paragraph. The first paragraph wasn't really changed. It seemed to be adequate for whatever everybody thought, but I can read through it. The purpose of this by-law is to promote and regulate the creation of new large scale ground mounted solar. There's a lot of work to be done to ensure. A lot of work to ensure. Voltaic installations by providing standards for the placement, design, construction, operation, monitoring, modification and removal of such installations. Any comments? The second paragraph, the town of Amherst recognizes the urgent need to convert to non-carbon energy sources. slow and to reverse climate change. Okay. Jack has his hand up. Yeah. Isn't there like a, the resolution that we could reference here. The town council's resolution. Yeah. Yeah, good idea. Okay. I'll get that information from Stephanie. This bylaw aims to balance multiple needs. The need for non carbon forms of energy generation and storage. Excuse me. To meet climate action goals. That was a suggestion of Dan to substitute non carbon for the word alternative. The second thing is the need to promote the health, safety and welfare of the people of the town of Amherst and the region rather than protect. The third, the need to preserve rather than protect the natural environment. Protect sources of carbon sequestration. I think that was something Martha added. And minimize impacts on scenic natural and cultural resources. And then the other two things we didn't make any changes to the need to provide adequate financial assurance for eventual decommissioning of such installations. We recognize the rights of landowners to use their land. Okay. Chris. I had my hand up. I'll go first and then Jenna, I'm just wondering in. In with the knowledge of what the KP attorney provided to us last night and we'll all hear at our next meeting in terms of grounding these things into justification of protecting the health, welfare. Health, health, something in welfare. I'm wondering on the need to preserve the natural environment protect sources of carbon sequestration minimize impacts on scenic and natural cultural resources whether that should be, you know, we should add something to say to to to preserve the welfare of the community of Amherst or something along those lines. Janet. Yeah, this kind of this last sentence, the need to recognize the rights of landowners to use their land. You know, I didn't mention it last time but I just kind of stuck with me because you know in the zoning bylaw, you know, there's tons of ways of regulating and giving permission and taking the permission about uses like how people can use their land and so I've never seen this phrase used in the zoning bylaw and I wondered, like, why is it there because it doesn't. It doesn't actually make that much sense to me and I don't, you know, like, is there like what is a right of a land owner to use their land like that seems on one hand super vague to me. And, you know, if they have the rights they just have the rights like, is there a need I don't know what that means like I just legally I don't understand it I never have seen it in the zoning bylaw before. I did see it, if you don't mind my responding in in one of the zoning bylaws that I looked at, and it may have been the Cape Cod Commission. It's a common thread that runs through when we are drafting zoning bylaws to remember that landowners have certain rights to use their land and you can't regulate things to the extent that you prevent them from using their land so I think it's a worthwhile reminder to people that it's not all about, you know, limitations on things but landowners do have the right to use their land and if things are appropriately zoned, then they can use them for the purposes that are allowed. But so I think I think I did get this from the Cape Cod Commission and I can confirm that. To me it sort of seems like a potential hornet's nest that somebody can kind of use saying well, you know, I have this, you know, land and I want to use it for solar and you're saying I can't because it's you know x, y and z, and also number and litigation and so it seems. So I think you know the legal standard the constitutional standard is that you can have regulations that are so onerous that your land has no more value or almost no value so you know say, you know the restrictions are so great that basically you can't sell it has no value to anything and so that's always there like that's that just is this big constitutional thing in the background. And so, you know, so if we said, we don't want solar on this type of land or whatever. So as long as there's literally still there's value to land for other reasons or any other reason. It's not a taking so the issue is like is it a taking that you read has the regulation been so onerous that you no longer have, you have almost no value to your land left that's there and those kind of protections are there and so I feel like that sentence in this context is kind of like a little flat waving a flag of potential litigation. You know, and so I so my recommendation is just delete it people have a right to own their property not to get regulated to almost no value. You know, I assume that no parcel of land is only good for solar and there's no other use to it so I kind of feel like it's just a, it looks like a hornets potential hornets nest to me and I'm just sort of thinking like why is it there doesn't need to be there. If it's always in the background as your legal rights. Why would you say it here and not other parts of the bylaw. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get more comments on that. Yeah, I think that I actually was supportive of including it and I think one of the main reasons why landowners get upset and I've seen lots of this across the country is that they feel like they're being told what they can't do with their properties and for example, people could, you know, forest their land if they wanted to without prior approval you know there's a lot of things people can do with their property. But it just seems that with solar. They're far more restrictions so. And I always joke that if there was one religion in the United States that everyone could agree to its personal property rights. And when you start to take those away people get really upset. So, I think that it's actually positive for us to say out of the gate, you know we recognize this right. And here all the, you know, the things we are also looking for in addition to supporting that right. So, that's my opinion. Thank you. Yep. Good Jack. You know, I want to keep it there too. I feel like we could scrutinize every need as being, you know, unnecessary in some respects, and this is just kind of looking at all of them in a balanced way. So I think that, you know, definitely, absolutely. Yeah, great. I would I would add and then we'll go to Martha that again, this is all, all based on the pre the clause that goes before to balancing these multiple needs so no one of them is sort of the the one that takes priority. I guess I would ask, and I'm trying to view this learned a lot from Attorney Murphy I think it is from KP law last night about fending off potential lawsuits and language along these lines, you know, could be helpful to say oh well we do have this protection, we do have this as one of the things we're trying to balance in our in our bylaw. Very much up front here. I do wonder whether caveat having the qualifying that a little bit. And I'm not suggesting that just throwing out here's an idea to say something about the need to recognize the rights of landowners to use their lands in accordance to section three. I don't get the other numbers to that but the Dover clauses I learned it was called the section three of the of the mass general law of some number law that really is state law that we're sort of working around which is basically working which is basically that people do have the right to not be be unusually restricted from doing solar without demonstrating some reason based on public welfare. Okay, good Martha. I would, I would tend to agree with Janet that it's kind of, you know, something that the landowner rights are part of our, you know, state and national legal system but maybe also then agree with Dwayne that if people want to leave it in that somehow it should be qualified a bit and maybe, you know, Chris or somebody brilliant and can come up with an alternative statement that would qualify it and set it in context. I would also like to pose the question of whether in the very beginning, we are in fact, making a statement of promoting solar, strongly enough to go along with the KP law recommendation. Okay, good Chris did you have some feedback on that. I just wanted to say that, after we put our draft together we will be sending this off to KP law for their review. So if they see that there's a problem with that sentence and it opens us up to lawsuits, I think they will flag that as something that we should delete. But my sense is that they probably won't do that but that I just wanted to reassure you that we're not the end all and be all KP law will be looking at this. Okay, and who would I see Janet. Um, so, so I, I, you know, I, when I read the minutes this morning I realized, Oh, I was supposed to provide some more nexus language. Yeah. And so at the very last minute I sent out the purposes statement of the draft by I did the whole draft solar bylaw I sent it to Chris. And so my purposes statement is actually a lot longer, talking about, you know, like, you know, but depending on what we come up with like here's the value of, you know, all the decisions Amherst has made to protect farmland and scenic views and you know, all the, you know, whatever. So I'm sorry that I just did this at the last minute so we could send that out on the other hand and at the same time I would caution us not to like go over this language with the fine to come because this is like our first look at it. I need to offer my services later when we're at the, you know, when we've heard the community values and you know what the town wants to see is I'm happy to be like a nexus or us like whatever we're trying to protect. We can put language in the purposes statement that explains how it promotes safety, how it promotes the general welfare or public health and so. Part of me feels like, you know, we don't have to do, say everything here but what when we're sort of at the end of the road and we know what's in and what's out and what we're protecting or what we're trying to promote the purposes statement can have that nexus link the language saying, you know, why we want it on rooftops or why, you know, or something or why we chose these, these areas and not these areas and how regulating these areas helps promote stuff so I think those reasons can be written in I don't think we have to write them now because we don't know what we're really deciding at this point so to maybe like if we can just send around the my purposes statement because the last two paragraphs are just starting to say. The reasons why we did this, here's how this helps us, you know, if it's a forest land it provides air it tempers the, you know, provides water, you know, blah blah blah all the good things and so that's why we decided to, to not do this or limit the size of x or So I just don't I think that until we make those decisions, we don't have to get so tied down and what the nexus or the reason for there and how it connects to public safety health and welfare. Great thank you I did always think that this section is kind of like an abstract where you sort of write up but then come back and really, really look at it again once you're done the body of the paper to make sure it is that it sets up the the bylaw really well once it's once we know what it looks like. And so I would agree that it's, we don't have to go through it with the fine to comb at this point maybe but, but want to revisit it at the end, not to suggest that we don't have a really good start here but let me finish up. Jack, is that a new hand right. Yeah, I'm just I'm just doing the minutes on this. I'm just trying to understand what Janet was referencing there that the nexus link. Well she did. Janet did. So when I say nexus I mean, what's the connection between what we're regulating and what's its connection to public safety health and welfare like how that's like the statement that connects it. So I'm trying to think of an example. So if we decide no large scale solar arrays and Amherst center or any of the village centers we can say the goal of those village centers are dense housing and economic, you know, development and so that's an inappropriate area doesn't promote the public welfare in a strong economy or dense places to live because that actually reduces, you know, energy use and promotes harmony and creates a nice village center, and is attractive to tourists like I could say I can make up any reason you want. Basically, like I'm saying that that connection between the regulation. It's there and how it promotes the safety public health and welfare. You know, I mean I don't think I can do any reason but I think it's, that's the, those are the steps. I mean, yeah, that helped. I get yes I thank you. Okay. Let's carry on then Chris with working our way through this. Okay. Paragraph this bylaws drives to regulate solar facilities and energy storage facilities, in order to encourage solar installations to be installed on built and previously degraded environments, to the extent technically and economically feasible and to control negative impacts on areas such as forests and agricultural land. I'll keep going. This bylaw balances the critical goal of increasing solar energy production with reasonable regulations, thus serving to promote the health safety and general welfare of emmerced residents. Any problems there. Yeah, I think, you know, again my line of work being a licensed site professional, you know, looking at risks and impacts and things like that. So when we're talking about controlling negative impacts, I like to see the word significant negative impacts, because there's always going to be a little impact. And it just kind of puts on on a proper tier. There's always going to be in the paragraph before. Yeah, yeah. Can you say that again. I'm just saying when it says the last sentence there says control negative impacts on areas such as forests and agricultural lands I would say control significant negative impacts, or just say significant significant impacts doesn't have to be negative but let's see, I think we're on to the paragraph, the second paragraph below that. Yeah, yeah, this bylaw encourages the use of solar energy systems and protect solar access consistent with Massachusetts general laws chapter 40 a section nine be solar access 18 and green communities act. And that's general law chapter 25 a section 10 so those are two bylaws or two mass general laws that promote solar energy. And those were also part of the Cape Cod Commission model bylaw. And also supportive of people had a question about whether we could say everything is consistent with so we put the word supportive of the Amherst master plan the open space and recreation plan, the climate action adaptation and resilience plan and the Massachusetts clean energy and climate action plan for 2025 and 2030, also known as 2025 2030 CPC Cp. Okay. And then Dwayne suggested this statement here. This bylaw strives to encourage and regulate solar facilities and energy storage facilities in a manner that reflects the equity and justice of impacts and opportunities across all sectors of Amherst residents with particular concern. I would substitute the word for instead of on particular concern for our low income and marginalized communities. Okay. And then the last sentence that I had was the provision set forth in this section, she'll take precedence over all other less restricted, less restrictive sections of the zoning bylaw and the regulation of large scale ground mounted solar boat solar total intake installations I'm sorry I'm tripping over those words. So that was the end of the draft, but then Janet did say that she would give us a nexus language and she's saying that she'll give it to us as the need arises as we go through this. And then we also said we wanted to check with KP law about including a paragraph on encouraging economic benefit to the town so I think what we learned from Jonathan Murray last night was that you can have something that encourages bylaw solar installers to, you know, provide some kind of economic benefit but you can't require them to do that so I'll try to get some language from KP law about that. Yeah that was also stated in their response to our question on that matter in their responses as well. Great. Well first thank you Chris for that work. Pulling this together and going through the language here. Really, really great to see us getting getting started. Any further thoughts or comments or questions on the this purpose and intent section. Again, we'll read it through again. Periodically but certainly when we're done. Or before before we before we send things forward. All right. Great. And Chris not that not at all to put. Do you have your hand up Chris or is that I do have my hand up I just wanted to recommend that you read the planning board minutes from February 6 of 2022 because it talks a lot about different things that can be thought about when we're drafting is owning bylaw and you may not have understood why that was in your packet so it was in your packet I'm just encouraging you to read it thank you. Thank you Chris and that while we're on that, because I think we have a little bit of time. I did, I did read that. And and again I don't know the full context of these different committees but the, there did seem to be some reference about some people to to sort of work help work on the on the on the bylaw, and I just wanted to get a better sense from you in terms of how this connects with us in terms of working together or, or, or learning from each other or, or, you know how this all sort of fits together. I do want me to answer that now. Yes, yeah that'd be great and then we'll go to Jack. Um, we, the planning department received 20, no $50,000 through the budget last year to use for various purposes and one of the purposes we were going to use it for was examining the boltwood garage to see if, if it could hold another company. And another purpose was to get some help on the zoning bylaw dealing with solar installations. So now that we've got, we actually have a consultant on board to deal with the boltwood garage so we know how much money is going in that direction. Now we know how much we have left out of that 50,000. We do have a scope of work that we've developed so we will be putting that out and hopefully getting help on some of these thorny issues but I think, you know that will be coming very shortly. We've been holding off because we didn't know how much money we would have left. Awesome so for me to understand that that that consultant would then be working with you as in the planning department to sort of do the do or or contribute to the drafting that your department would be doing and sharing with us for, for us to have our input in. That's right. Yeah, okay. Okay, that's good to know you'll have that additional resource. So what kind of time frame do you think on on that in terms of actually having somebody available to work. Well it would be lovely if we could have someone on board by the end of the year or the first of the new year. Yeah, we're going to try for that. Great. All right, thanks. Jack. Yeah, I was just going to say it's ironic that I wasn't that mean. I don't miss many but I see I was absent. Oh well. All right. All right, great. Yeah, so let's, if people haven't had a chance to read the planning board minutes, I think they were. Please do so and bring any comments to the next meeting as well. Okay. All right, so let's move on. We don't. And I never want to put at all pressure on you Chris on, on bringing more more drafting to us because that's that's obviously in your, in your wheelhouse and you have to manage that the best you feel possible. I'm really great to hear that you'll be getting some extra resources on that. And so what should we should we sort of expect for until sort of the beginning of the year that will probably won't have some additional drafting. I think we will try to draft make drafts as we are able to the last two weeks have been particularly difficult. So for various reasons, which I won't go into. Yeah, and yeah. So, yes, we will attempt to have new drafts for you by next time. Okay, okay, if that'd be great that can work out I recognize next week's a short week as well. Okay. Okay, any other things before we move on. Great, and I thought this would be an opportunity to go into this next section of the agenda on sort of presentations and background information. And maybe if we can reengage with Laura on her earlier presentation, which we kind of ran out of time if I recall and then never quite tied up. And so thanks Laura for that I definitely find that you're not sort of prepared for a presentation, which wasn't really the intent but just to engage with us on any, any further thoughts you wanted to bring forward, as well as any questions that we have working group for Laura on on being in the trenches of a solar developer and looking at it from that angle. Laura are you. Yeah, you're you're around. Okay, great. All right, great. I think the presentation I reviewed was shared prior and I know we didn't have time last time for questions so happy to answer any questions that people might have or if new topics have come up I'm happy to try to address those. Just let me know. Yeah, I'm trying to. I guess I mean, just in terms of, you know, your experience as the solar developer, and obviously your experience is beyond Massachusetts as well. My experience extends to the full development cycle, you know, obtaining site control, you know, developing a solar project it also extends to financing the solar project so bringing in the long term financiers which as I mentioned before is frequently not the same as the entity that develops a solar project and I think that's a massive misconception in the market. And also bringing in, you know, tax equity and as well. And maybe just from the permitting or the bylaw perspective is and this wouldn't be so much on the financial end so much or maybe it could in terms of risk and so forth but I mean what when you're as a solar developer and you're like entering some new municipality or or potential site. So what are, you know, are there any sort of experiences or sense of, you know, what are some of the bylaw language that is that is causes developers, particular pain, or, and you know that could be a good thing, so areas of the bylaws that developers specifically target to that are for potential litigation that this is really a undue burden on solar restriction on solar development. And typically the bylaws I've seen or the, and in fact, I think that there's a couple of things I can mention about the new legislation that was passed via IRA. But I think that most of the bylaws I have seen are in relation to like setbacks shrubbery to be planted to sort of conceal the farm. You know, most of it is visual, you know, like I've seen a lot of sort of visual requirements, and I think for the most part, developers are happy to oblige. One thing that I think is really interesting that I would love to see this committee encourage is, you know, there are some additional incentives under IRA. The Inflation Reduction Act to incent solar on like low income housing facilities, or on that property, or even, even, even if it's not on that property to, to provide electricity to the residents of that property and the savings. I think that would actually be very consistent with what Amherst is trying to do with economic development. So, you know, I think, and there's a lot of creative things that have been done with like, you know, payment and little taxes like there's a lot of creative things that have been done to sort of meet the communities needs. And quite frankly, I think we can, I think if there's a particular solar project that gets proposed, and we know there are additional incentives coming via IRA, I think we can ask for more. You know, I think we could ask for more taxes that you can ask for things that are not typical for what we have asked for in the past. So I, you know, just be mindful of that. Everything's in negotiation. Right. So it's not like a one size fits all with any of these projects. Yeah. So I feel like I just, I feel like I need like sort of more concrete detail like, you know, like, where's the money where's the profit. And so that makes any sense. So like people. So, you know, you know, like, array was sold three times and either it seems like it's valuable like is the profit in the state incentives or those tax write offs or though are they cash. You know, like how much money you're making does that vary by the price, you know, that you're getting per year. So I just like, if you're going to make a pitch to me or tell me how like how this works financially for people. Yeah. So that's great. So it's complicated. I could even, you know, maybe the next time I can pull up a redacted project finance model for a solar facility. But there are a lot of pieces that go into it. So when a developer is developing a solar project, they typically get it. If they're not going to be the owner. They typically get it to a point called notice to proceed, which I spoke about during my presentation. So their role is to obtain all the permits to make sure there's an interconnection at a reasonable price. So the site isn't, you know, hindered by any sort of environmental issues at that notice to proceed timeline they would have found a buyer for the project. And the buyers for the project in Massachusetts a lot of names that you guys are familiar with, you know, next amp which is based in Boston they're a great asset owner. Next era, you know, there's just a number of them. So that's the long term asset owner. When people say that the project's been sold multiple times I always want to drill into that a little bit more because tax equity is a large player in solar right now in Massachusetts so basically there's a 30% tax credit for tax equity partners so they basically own the majority of the project. For the first five years to get that 30% tax credit. And there are. So, so, Laura, can I just so. So, so, if you're putting in a million dollars or $10 million, does that mean the state is going to give you back 300,000 on your million or the state the state doesn't give you anything. The state doesn't give you anything your entire revenue is based on the contract and power purchase price of the solar facility and to be totally frank, the value of solar in Massachusetts has decreased over time. So that's why you're, you know, what we're seeing right now is actually a significant slowdown in Massachusetts relative to what we saw in the past so the largest economic drivers happen in the beginning of the program. And if you go further down in this megawatt block structure, the value decreases. So, so your, your contracted revenue is entirely based on, I think I told you before in that first presentation, if you used that 15 cents a kilowatt hour as a basis for production. That's your that's your full revenue for the project. And that's what you use basically determine whether it's worthwhile or not so when you do these adders. And I want to just clarify this, every adder comes with a cost. So if you said I'm going to offer this power to low income consumers. One of the things is that the state is going to validate every year that you have low income consumers on your project, and you are paying someone to make sure that when one long income customer drops you have another one to film. So there's dollars there, you know, because you have to explain the product what it is what your savings are, you know, get a contract in place. If you're going to develop on a brownfield or a rooftop there's additional costs there. So perhaps with a rooftop you have to replace the roof. You know there's different maintenance requirements for all of these adders that's why there are adders because there's a recognition that, you know, these things cost more. I think. So, I don't know if that answers your question but but the entire like the asset owner does not doesn't benefit from like you need a tax equity partner that has enough passive appetite to take advantage of the tax credit. It's called the it's called the ITC the investment tax credit. So, it's not, you know, I'd be curious like with Shootsbury. When you say it's been sold. I would say that the developer probably sold the project and notice to proceed. That's one sale. But I would be curious if that second sale was the actual, you know, I'm just, I'd be curious to know the trail and then I could explain to you what I think happened at each of those transactions. Because a lot of the time the long term asset owners, like the big ones, they don't want to sell their portfolio, they're building their portfolio. Like the ones I mentioned like next amp and next era. So they have no interest to flip these projects. So I have a quick question so the, you know, because I just need a visual so the solar ray on our landfill that Stephanie spent half her life helping is what's the value of that like how much that cost. And then it so the developer if they got in early enough would get more money. Right, then if they came in now, because of the state credit the state programs have changed like the value of the RECs or whatever, you know, like how much that cost to build and like what's the value of that equipment. Yeah, so, in general, I think as a decent ballpark, you can use. I don't know the cost to build is like in Massachusetts it's more expensive because we have a lot of labor laws, and that's a good thing. But you could use you know 220 watts to build or something like that I think that's probably a good estimate in Massachusetts. And for a little bit more, because it's a landfill and there's a lot of additional requirements to 20 to 20 what they want a lot. So mega mega it's it's like two million dollars to 2.2 million dollars per megawatt. Okay, thank you. Okay. And the developer, they only make their money by getting a developer fee. So their goal is to advance the project to, and well who was the developer of that Stephanie or Chris. It was Cypress Creek renewables. Oh well for the Amherst landfill. Yeah. Yeah. And the long term asset owner is whom. Carval. Carval, I'd be shocked if they ever sold this project in the future because they are, you know, a massive asset owner publicly traded and their desires to accumulate more solar projects as part of their business. So Cypress Creek's role at that point was to develop to develop the project and advance it to that notice to proceed state. And to sell the assets via what's called a MIPA, a membership interest purchase agreement. And what happens in that MIPA is typically an asset owner will come in and they'll buy the majority share of the project, because every project has its own special project company. And, and then after notice to proceed they get different payouts based on different milestones being met. So for example, you know, you know, 50% completion 90% completion, full interconnection. It's a way to keep the developer involved and engaged till the project is online and fully operational. Great. This is really helpful. Thanks. Let's just take a pause here. And Chris for a while. Yeah, yeah, there's been a couple of hands up minds up as well. I'll let Chris go first and then Stephanie. I wanted to ask or confirm that the tax incentives that you're talking about are all state and federal, or maybe they're all federal, they're all federal tax incentives. Okay, the state's putting in money through rate bearers by having the solar tariff that includes the renewable energy certificates. Yeah. And then the pilot that we hear about sometimes that's actually a local taxes that correct, or it's not a tax a local payment in lieu of tax, and the people who negotiate that aren't the zoning board of appeals or the planning board. That would be the town manager or the finance director, right. So I just wanted to kind of get that clear because. The thing that the town manager should be aware of it is, you know, the ways to negotiate pilots is constantly evolving. And when there's more money available for solar overall, like via Ira, and just to be clear, I was a massive document and people are still digesting it and figuring out ways to implement it but if there's more money available for the project, then Emma should also get a larger portion. Okay. Great. Yeah. Stephanie. Just one clarification is for our pilot it was actually negotiated with our finance director and the assessor was directly involved in and determining that. And then it was made available to the town manager. I had a question about because this came up and I was a little puzzled and I didn't fully understand this. So when son Edison was essentially going out of business. And before we were aware there was a point at which they were going to assign our project to another entity as part of like a portfolio of projects. And we wanted to ensure that didn't happen, because we were very clear that if it went to this other entity which was like an international company that they weren't going to develop it. So my question is why, and how do these companies benefit from obtaining a project but then not developing it like why, why does that happen, because I don't understand that at all. I would be shocked if they were going to get a project and not develop it because when son Edison went bankrupt. I believe all those projects were actually completed. Because as part of the bankruptcy negotiation they assigned a lot of the projects to another like people were buying those assets, as though they were going to be obviously at a haircut because it was a bankruptcy event. But do you remember the name of the entity. So I would be, I would be surprised because I have never, and I don't know what state the project was in but I have, I have never seen I've been involved in over $3 billion in solar transactions. I have never seen a project reach that notice to proceed milestone and not reach commercial operation. So I don't. Yeah, I don't know that we reached that point and that's what I'm saying is like that point we had been. We hadn't started any of the permitting. It was really early on and what was happening was that son of us and was stalling basically, because they were drowning. And so they just kept sort of kind of kept giving the impression that they were moving forward with certain aspects and so I kept, because I was having regular meetings with folks. And things kept putting get putting on hold work put on hold told we were going to advance to a next phase and they didn't so it was not very far along at all. Really, I mean we all we had done was really the PPA. Which was right, but which was a large piece but we weren't really much farther than that. Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure what the incentive would be to take an asset that obviously was valuable because it ended up being a solar project and sort of killing it on the vine. I'm not sure. I don't know of any instance why that would be perceived as a good idea. So, you know, obviously when son of us and was going through that liquidation event. Clearly there were delays because and they probably couldn't give you on the stands there's about what the status was but answer your question I'm not sure. I don't know of any advantages for killing a project. Thanks. Great. I was just a couple things I wanted to add was one is. I learned enough about solar financing to know that it's really complicated and probably above my and then gets beyond my deep understanding but at a high level. We, we, we had the clean energy extension part of our solar solar planning toolkit which we was referenced earlier today. We do have a financial spreadsheet that's at a very high level that allows one to really ask these questions about okay with a project that costs this much the tariff is this much the incentives are this much the off taking agreements are this much the pilot agreement is this much. At the end of the day our sort of desire was to find out where all the money goes. You know, does it go what stays what stays locally to various different parties and what goes externally to various parties, and primarily the asset the owner that typically at least in the third party ownership is non local. So that tool is available and it's pretty, it's again in very high level, but it is pretty dramatic in demonstrating that we lose a lot by giving up ownership. A whole lot that being said, there's a lot of risk associated with solar development I am a little bit less convinced there's a lot of risk with solar ownership but there's a lot of risk with solar development. And so, real keen on on trying to figure out pathways for for making that easier for local ownership for these large projects it's really hard because you're talking about. No, I mean I think it's a really interesting idea there's obviously a lot of value to ownership and I actually think you could actually, you know, potentially construct a scenario where it's a partnership. There's a joint venture between the town of Amherst and one of these larger entities but some of the key things that are important. And you got to make sure your cost and no I know like, you're always bringing debt to the table. For the most part with these larger assets and I think Amherst actually has access to a low cost of debt. But you know the red, you know I agree with you said there's tremendous risk when you're developing a project I'd say 60 to 70% fall out at some point during that development cycle. But with asset ownership it's things like understanding this could be a lot of revenue there, but understanding things like when you think inverters are going to be replaced. So I think it's for repowering the project once we have better technology for the panels on going on and making sure that you know your PPA parties are paying you on time so it depends on it. It depends on the level of engagement that Amherst would want, but there is definitely a revenue opportunity there for sure. In fact, in my sphere, a lot of the folks that I work with actually own solar projects. Yeah, great the other thing I was going to mention, just it is very exciting part of the IR of the IRA the Inflation Reduction Act pertaining to the ITC the investment tax credit is that that that policy that up until the IRA had acquired tax tax appetite in order to take advantage of the tax credit. It kind of skewed the market into this tax equity finance position that has has sort of dominated the market at this point, the new the new IRA does have provisions that provide. Well, it's good because it, it sets the ITC back up to 30% for a fairly long period of time I forget the exact date, but more so. It does provide that for non tax paying entities, including municipalities or any government structure, including nonprofits, like the university or academic institutions. That they can receive a equivalent amount of credit via a direct payment, as opposed to a tax tax credit, which they couldn't couldn't achieve. So that's really exciting and then and then to Laura's point if you can further demonstrate and again all the rules haven't been written but if you can further demonstrate that the project is specifically providing benefits to low income community. What's outstanding is that benefit that credit or direct payment can go up to 50%. Yeah, so there's pretty strict rules around that. Yeah, I suspect that the community you're in has a above average unemployment rate. It's called an energy community. There's strict rules for that but that is definitely a massive advantage in towns where that are more economically depressed. There's a bunch of other additional adders so for example, you know with domestic product, you know, if you can demonstrate a certain percentage of steel and so forth comes domestically, you can get an additional 10% tax credit. There's a number of adders that would benefit any solar developer. There's a number of things like PTC versus IDC in certain states of projects of a certain size. Massachusetts I don't think we qualify for that. Great. Okay, I'm trying to look for this project finance. You know, I can actually find one and review it next time I think that there's a lot of interest in seeing like what a model actually looks like and I have a number of them. And I've been searching while we're talking but you know, I'm happy to walk through that at some point in time. I am trying to figure out the connection with by permits and bylaws because they're kind of, you know, they're kind of listen if you're doing things standard as they were, and I think there's a general agreement that Amherst needs a larger tax base. You're going to extract your value. You could either do it creatively in terms of a percentage of revenue, which I actually have never seen done but you could totally do. You could do it with just increasing your payment in lieu of taxes like there's a number of creative things. And I think in the bylaw, it would be fair to say that we are interested in creating additional tax revenue for the amount of Amherst. I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to say. And, you know, and would welcome developers and asset owners who were interested in each of them with that sort of creative concept. But that has been in my mind a problem for municipalities that I've heard is that they're negotiating in a position of weakness. Not knowing what you have all the information and I'm happy like, you know, I don't work for the town but Stephanie and Chris I'm always here so you know it's easy for me to look at a project and say hey here's how much I think the revenue is going to be. And, you know, what do we think is reasonable for taxes. Yeah. So like just to give you an example, I did wind work a long time ago. And it was very common that a wind asset owner would build a community center as part of their contribution to the town so there are things that you can do that have been done before. Well, a couple teachers in this school. Cool. All right, this is really great stuff and appreciate your openness Laura. That's great. Chris. Oh, I was having trouble unmuting. I wonder if Laura could talk a little about the issue of energy companies such as ever source or whatever, having trouble accepting more solar energy I sort of remember hearing something like that like solar developers are having a hard time finding a way to send their energy and is that problem, resolving itself or is that still the case. So, so what you're referring to is every time you connect a solar project you're connecting to a certain hub, and not to get too complicated here but like, while the state might say, you have an irrespective of what hub you're connecting to, because that's the agreement with developers in the state, however, there are more. There are certain areas in the state where solar is more valuable, for example in hubs that are you've got like nodes and hubs throughout the state where you connect a solar project to, and that is basically what distributes energy to like nearby businesses households and so if you are connecting a solar project, a large solar project and you're seeing this in Maine a lot right now which has a strong solar program. You're actually connecting a solar project to a node that has that serves very little load, and it's producing all this power but you have no way to distribute this power to the part of the state that really need the solar. So I think that's what you're referring to. So I would imagine that so where the solar is most economically beneficial, and I don't think we really have this problem in Amherst because we have enough load, but is in places where there's people using it. So, if you're developing a solar project like you're really in the middle of nowhere, and there's no way to transmit that power to the actual load basis and yes, that's that's certainly an issue. It doesn't necessarily impact the, the value of the solar but that's, you know, something that this is why you see certain states like with the ability to wield power so for example, if Maine could wield their power to Massachusetts this issue would go away, because Massachusetts has tremendous load and if you can get it over the border, and you know turn it into revenue it becomes much more valuable. So solar in like New York has taken in a step further, sorry, I'll stop talking soon but New York has taken in a step further to say, we're actually we've identified opportunity zones in the state where we really want someone. And in those opportunities zones we're going to give you more revenue but like that's where the load is like Westchester County places like that Albany. And correct me if I'm wrong Laura and then we'll get to Jack is at a local level. The projects have to be interconnected at the distribution line. And not necessarily you could you could connect at the transmission line it's going to be a different kind of project. Okay, but but generally, generally they're connected to three phase power distribution lines. And the minor standing is that the issue is that to the extent that there is enough load on that line to basically dissipate the power and and and with pretty much 100% certainty make sure that you don't have this concept that's referred to as reverse power flow where where you actually the electrons. Actually I think the electrons going the opposite direction but you have, you don't have power heading back to the powers to the power state not the power station but the the substation, the substation, because there's not necessarily equipment there to tolerate and deal with power going in that direction. That's the perfect place for energy storage. Exactly. Battery sports allows you to do is capture that power and then release it when people you know we all think about our behaviors when we use electricity we use it in the morning. We use it in the evening on the weekends. So, yeah. That's one reason why you know in Massachusetts at least all larger solar projects now need to have solar power solar storage batteries, some sort of storage to go to go with them to help deal with that problem. Yeah, Jack and then and then let's spend about five or 10 more minutes on this. Yeah, I just based on what Laura said that Amherst doesn't have an issue with regard to demand. I just thought we could just briefly a little bit off topic deconstruct the situation with Hickory ridges project. Where reportedly it's going to Springfield I was also, you know, I thought, you know, it'd be used locally but I'm just wondering in how to get it up in Springfield. Yeah, I think this is a great. This is a great so the way energy works whether it's gas coal nuclear or solar is that physically the electrons flow to the closest point of usage. So if I had a solar array in my backyard and my neighbors hated solo, their energy is 100% solar powered. But as far as like who that who is contracted to purchase the solar power is a different story. So, I'm assuming that you're, I'm assuming that Springfield has agreed to a long term power purchase agreement for the output of Hickory really. Basically that's based on like Massachusetts is pretty well saturated like a lot of municipalities during those Sunday's signed up for power purchase agreements via virtual net me. It's a concept called virtual net metering. And what that allows it's been amazing innovation and states that permitted. It allows you to build a solar facility and have the off taker be remotes. Now, Springfield is not getting green electrons from solar. Okay, they, they're what they are doing is they're getting a fixed price typically out of savings for energy that's produced. But it's, you know, the way that the grid works is that whoever is in closest proximity to the solar is the one that's actually benefiting from those, you know, renewable. There's laws of physics and there's laws of contracts. Okay. I can't, I don't know who had their hand up for so Janet. Um, so this may not, this is maybe going a little bit off. I don't know, just, it's a quick, I think it's actually kind of a quick question, maybe an answer. I don't really understand like the idea that, you know, when we talk about like you need to have a surety or some kind of guarantee that when the facility shuts down, you know, it's decommissioned and so it seems to me like once you build the solar array on a rooftop or whatever, it's probably going to be around there for decades because it's very productive. I mean it makes a lot of money. The need will stay there. And the panels may like need replacing but you know, so, you know, so I'm wondering like if we had a solar array in a parking lot like, won't that be there for a long time and it just might be. You know, it's a great, it's a great question. And this is where you get into sort of this concept of repowering. So I agree with you. That once you have taken the time to develop a solar project, not necessarily on a rooftop, but and most other ground mounted locations. It's unlikely that that facility is ever going to be anything than some sort of power generation facility. And there's a couple key criteria there so. So, in the case of it if solar was, who knows what the technology is going to be in 20 years, Janet, you know, we can have a whole new technology, but there's a couple limiting factors here. It depends on the terms of the interconnection agreement. The interconnection agreement spires in a certain timeline, then you have to reapply and you'll be considered in the it's like a brand new project to a certain extent. But who knows where we'll be with battery storage and micro grids and who knows what the universe will look like but I do believe it is. It's important to have the decommissioning language in there. And I think it's like, for example, in the land that Emerson's I think it's very unlikely that someone wouldn't be coming back to us at the end of the 30 year time here and saying hey this is what I want to do. You know I want to either replace all the panels replacing burgers build a brand new solar project, or whatever the technology is at that time. Also would it depend on the price like so what if wind was cheaper than solar in 10 years or 20 years. It's very, very site specific, so where solar can be, you know, it's basically good almost everywhere. Wind is very, very site specific and typically the places where wind is most valuable are places where you would not want to live. So if you think of like standing two miles off the coast of the ocean and the wind that happens constantly like. But yes, I mean along the similar vein of technology that we can't even imagine. But like MIT is working on like two generations from now. I personally agree that that site will always be used for some sort of energy production and the likelihood of it going back to like farmland is pretty unlikely. So, okay, thank you. Great Stephanie. You're muted. Sorry, I wanted to go quickly back to jack's question about the. Energy was electricity was essentially going quote unquote to Springfield is at the time that that project came forward. We had already moved forward with the solar landfill project and almost actually more than half of our electricity usage and needs are being covered by the solar landfill project. But the Hickory Ridge project wanted to have one off taker. And we couldn't take all of that we so we couldn't cover the energy that was being generated on that project we couldn't cover that with our electricity needs so our accounts basically we didn't have enough accounts to cover all of that. It's more complicated because then it requires more PPAs if they were going to split it up and some do, but it's just more it's more contracts with more entities and it's more complicated. It's just easier for them to just find one entity to take the whole thing. So that's, that's why we didn't lose we let me just kind of speak one point. So for future negotiations for any of these projects it's actually that's something you can easily push back on. You could easily say you know what I'm sorry it's more difficult for you, but it's very easy to say 30% of the power goes to hammer 70% to Springfield. That's something that is actually, I actually think it's less typical to have one off taker than it is multiple off takers they're just fyi. So, do you mean, like, the government use the town's government or all town municipal municipal municipal energy use. Not like everybody town not the whole community only the municipal portion. If we had a CCA, perhaps they could be an off taker. CCA though like I think the biggest to notice is like in Massachusetts we're very fortunate because some states have what are called these community solar programs and I actually think this is really important for any negotiation in the future but basically what it does is in Massachusetts half of your project can be offered to residential off takers anyone that has their own electricity bill whether it's an apartment or a house or whatever can participate in community solar so it's very typical in Massachusetts half of the power come from one or two anchor off takers like a municipality or a commercial entity. And then the other 50% go to households, anyone that has their own electricity bill so that is a benefit of Massachusetts. That is certainly not the case everywhere, New York and Massachusetts lead with these programs, including like small commercial businesses can participate to. This has been really helpful and robust conversation. But let's let's carry on and again thank you Laura for that expertise and insights and sharing sharing that with us. All right, and we got to be cognizant of time as well I actually have a hard stop at 130 myself. So. Sorry. Anybody somebody. No, okay. Moving on on the agenda. I do say for who was that I think Chris mentioned the fire department coming to be scheduled I guess to be a presenter to us and discuss it with us. Is that going to be at the next meeting? Sorry, I'm going to jump in. No, because we have Jonathan Murray from KP law to respond to those questions and that my guess is that's probably going to take up. I would think that's going to be a pretty robust discussion. Yeah, that would take up a lot of time. You know the fact that you have him at your, you know, at your disposal, if you will take advantage of that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so we'll put the fire department on hold if you will. But we'll maybe next time discuss about trying to schedule with that person, either the next meeting or the following meeting depending on their availability as well. Jonathan will be really helpful to us to dig in a bit more on the battery storage I do wonder. You know whether he is he sounds like he's a very critical person for us to hear from and learn from in terms of fire suppression and so forth and how the risk is being trained up. I don't, I do wonder just whether he has additional expertise about just more generally what the risks are associated with battery storage and what the latest technologies are on on battery storage with reducing these risks and best practices and so forth. And so maybe we'll hear from him first but then see if there's somebody if we need to sort of cover some more ground and then think about somebody else if we think that's necessary. Martha Jeff something on that. Yeah, just just a quick question. Our next meeting is December 2. Are you then planning a meeting two weeks later on the what 16th or 17th of December so you know sort of a week before Christmas. It would probably make sense to get one more in before Christmas, if that works for folks the 16th. Is that how close is that bumping up. Yeah, it's the week before but I mean, I might be able I possibly be able to tune in remotely. Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay. Great. Okay, and I guess the next agenda item maybe will adjust the agenda going forward because I think we really did the solar assessment update in the staff updates that Stephanie provided so I don't think there's anything more there. Let's just confirm on the next meeting. We just mentioned but just to confirm we had that for December. Second Friday. Again at, again at 1130 to 130. Does that look okay for everybody. That's what we had. We had scheduled that a while out. Yeah, for the next meetings. Exactly. And I don't think we will do we have one we I miss on mine I have it for the 16th as well. Yes, that is correct. Yeah. Okay. So we'll stick with that. And then maybe revisit after the new year. Because then we probably won't meet the 30. Well, maybe I'll be wanting to meet the 30th of December. It's not quite. It's not quite New Year's Eve. I'm not sure if I'm. But we'll work on that later. Okay. Great. Any, and I think we have a pretty robust agenda. For next meeting with our normal agenda, but, but primarily a focus on KP law, their presentation as well as as a engagement with them on the Q&A. That we had with them. So do, do have that well reviewed before we had the opportunity to talk to attorney Murphy on, on at the next meeting. Great. So before we go to public comment, we'll go to Chris. I wanted to confirm Stephanie and I will be in touch with Jonathan Murray. And you're asking him to not only go through his memo where he answers your questions. But are you also asking him to give you the presentation that he gave to the CBA last night. Well, I would, I, I mean, for the three of us, I think who were on on there, maybe I'll ask for their opinion to I thought it was really helpful. And really a strong presentation terms just the boundaries that we're working under and things to pay attention to. And how to think about this bylaw going in and how we need to defend and encourage what we're saying. So I thought that would be would be very helpful. And I see Jack had a thumbs up and who else was on that. Dwayne, can I make a suggestion. Yeah, yeah, please. We could provide I'd be happy to provide the link to that meeting so people could watch it in advance so he doesn't necessarily have to take the time to do it again. Yeah, because you'll have the questions and then you'll have the recording you can watch it at your leisure. Yeah, given their limited time and resources and, and I think it's Jonathan said on his presentation, he's gone through that so many times his wife was getting tired of him. Maybe maybe I'm good with that because I think it's very efficient I just want to really encourage everybody to to listen in on that before we meet with with Attorney Murphy on on at the next meeting. So does that work for folks. And, and yeah, and actually, you know, yeah, so that that'd be great. So let's really hone in though on on reviewing his responses to our questions to think about one whether we want to probe a little bit more in his responses as well as you know any any sort of other questions that we might have want to raise. Yeah, Jack. Just clarifying, when's the KP law, I mean Amherst fire department is the second. No, no KP law will be the second, our next meeting December 2. And the fire department is to be determined I would say. Okay, possibly the 16th. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. Okay, great. Okay, so we're all set there. Janet final thing and then we'll go to public comment. So I was hoping that we could schedule on our calendar, like a session on, you know, freshwater wetlands and forests and like the functions they serve and you know, the, you know, the importance of them or what they do and then maybe looking at some solar projects in those areas or near them. Or maybe just understanding how they're functioning in the ecosystem and whatever. And then also, I really, really think we have to talk about farmland. And I was, you know, thinking, I was actually thinking of contacting John Gerber, and just saying, can you talk to us about Connecticut River Valley, Amherst soils, you know, he was one of the founders I think of Brookfield farm, and just talk about, and then we have someone talk about dual use like Jake, Marley, who has a company doing that so, you know, I think we just need some more content in those two areas. And then I don't know if this has to be like, I think somebody should be deputized or something to collect information about like when it went wrong, and I know Christine wants to focus on when it went right and actually be good to but just, you know, just a little bit of information on this worked here this didn't work here if somebody could pull those together because I keep you know like, somebody's talking about the pine barons and the problems with you know it being a soul source aquifer not our situation, you know, but we do have a lot of local water. Like I just feel like we need those contents because as we're writing that will that kind of information. So we could schedule those out. And maybe somebody from the group could organize the farm somebody could do the forest somebody could do the, you know, you know, do's and don'ts like fashion do's and don'ts like solar bylaw do's and don'ts, you know, or something, you know, I would be up for having a discussion on on that those two two topics and how we might want to go forward with with that, those ideas and more robust information gathering and so forth. Is there a presentation or reading on it or something, you know, yeah exactly let's just given the time constraint right now and I don't mean to keep jumping it forward but maybe to schedule some time particularly to discuss that and how we want to frame that at the next meeting or the following meeting. Okay, Jack and then Lauren then really want to get to public input. Yeah, I just want to say the, the white paper that the water resources group, we delved into that. And, you know, gave it our best effort and there are only a couple of like, you know, failed, quote unquote projects I mean the vast majority, you know, 99% you know, go relatively well, and, but there are a couple that just really did not. So, and we did discuss that, you know, briefly in the white paper so that can be a starting point. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, good. Yeah, I was going to say I was going to mention what Jack just said and I think when it comes to I just want to make sure we're balanced in terms of our approach so when it comes to like water resources and solar. The water itself is, you know, totally benign, but how we manage the grasses and maintain like with chemicals, that should be the focus here, because, you know, I think there's been so many studies on like the runoff from panels and that's really fine, but I think it's perfectly reasonable and actually beneficial for Amherst to have a preference for how these whether it's in a water resource or not, the chemicals we approve to use for solar. So the other thing I want to say is, I want to be very careful with talking about farmland, because I'm just going to say that I have worked with so many farmers who have a dying business, and they see solar as a savior to what was you know, I think sort of, you know, I don't know hard times but I think the dual use piece is actually a really great idea, because I think there's not only incentives for that but there are ways that it's been done well. We can talk about that next meeting but I'm happy to bring in people I know who've done it, things like even like sheep grazing, you know that's a way to not use chemicals at all and to, you know, anyways, okay. Great. And I'll share I mean we have a grant with the US DOE at this point to evaluate the impacts of dual use and have partners across Massachusetts, looking at some sites that have been constructed at this point. So, I'm happy to share that for sure. Okay. This has been great so Stephanie if you could see if there's any public comments that would like to be made at this point that would be great. Sure so if anyone from the public has a question or comment please virtually raise your hand. Super I don't see any activity on the hand raising there. No and just I know Martha always wants to know how many people so we have five. Five attendees for this meeting. And thank you to those five and any others that had joined earlier for joining us really appreciate the interest and and continued interest in the future so thank you. Okay, with that. I'd like to adjourn the meeting. Give us five minutes to get ready for the next one. And I hope everybody has a great motion. Sorry. Okay, just wishing everybody a great Thanksgiving break. Eat a lot. Enjoy family and see you on the other side. Okay. Laura thanks again for for all your information that's really happy to thank you. Thank you Laura. Thank you.