For years, the Noons property in Truro was used for industrial purposes. By 2027, it could become a solar farm with 14,000 panels.
That's according to the Provincetown Independent.
CAI's Gilda Geist spoke with Provincetown Independent news editor Paul Benson to learn more.
Gilda Geist What is the Noons property?
Paul Benson So, in North Truro there's this enormous sand pit that, since the 50s, has been used for all kinds of semi-industrial purposes. The Noons family, now the family Noons-Rose, had a septic tank business, they would pour asphalt and mix asphalt for roads, they would clear land for new developments—all kinds of big heavy trucks. They were actually featured in a trucking magazine because some of their trucks have been running since the 1950s and '60s, and they're considered really high end and precious in the vintage trucking world.
GG Can you tell me more about the proposal to turn some of the Noons property into a solar farm?
PB So, over the course of more than a century, the Noons family accumulated 69 acres. The town of Truro actually considered it as a DPW [Department of Public Works] site that wound up moving to a different location. And then Truro's voters considered buying it, 24 acres of it, for municipal uses, potentially including housing, and that did not pass. That was a $6 million measure at town meeting that didn't pass a couple of years ago. So, because it's this big, really disturbed site and the town has already passed on buying it, as it turns out, the Noons family has been talking to NextGrid, a solar company, since about 2019. And the solar company now plans on buying 39 acres from the Noons family to purchase and then build an enormous, 16-acre solar farm that would have 14,000 panels on it. It would be one of the largest on Cape Cod.
GG With this winter's blizzard and the associated power outages in such recent memory, I think some folks when they hear about this are going to be wondering whether a solar farm could help prevent the kinds of multi-day blackouts residents saw this February. What did your reporter find?
PB Yeah, that's definitely a question people here have. The company's not planning a particularly large battery installation at this site. Batteries don't take up a huge amount of space, but nonetheless, it's not really a big part of their plan. What they're planning is about one-tenth of the size of the backup battery in Provincetown. So, then Eversource says, 'well, maybe we can hook up the solar to our backup battery. We'll have to study it.' They weren't really prepared to commit to the idea that the solar farm could actually power Truro in a blackout. They did get a grant for a microgrid on the Outer Cape. It's like a $19 or $20 million grant, but that money hasn't been distributed from the federal government yet. There's a process involved in studying and spending it, so both Eversource and NextGrid were really non-committal about whether that would be an outcome of this solar farm.
GG A proposal to use land for a solar farm in Falmouth recently was pretty controversial, drawing strong criticism from opponents who wanted to see the land used for open space or other land uses that they thought were better. So, has this proposal sparked a debate or any big feelings yet in Truro?
PB So what makes this unique is that—and you can see this in the pictures we ran—it is an enormous, disturbed sand pit that excavators have been clawing through for more than 70 years. As a result, you don't see the kind of 'protect the nature' dialogue because this is not nature anymore. That is why the town was interested in buying it, because you wouldn't have to go through the discourse over cutting down the trees if you wanted to build a DPW building. There's also some PFAS on the site, probably from back when the Truro Fire Department used to practice at that location. There were other uses of the site—there was target practice, all kinds of ammunition. The solar company's committed to cleaning that up, and they're also committed to fencing the area in a way that wildlife like deer can pass through. But beyond that, this isn't a site that's intensely used by wildlife. There's really no major vegetation to speak of in the center of it—at least where the solar panels will be going. And because it's sunken down a bit, because it's a sand pit, there really aren't even that many view issues, as you might see on a hillside where everyone would see it as part of their viewshed.
Read the whole story by Lauren Hakimi in the Provincetown Independent.
