Sunfish Solar community meetings - District 1
- Orange Co. Resident 2
- Apr 25, 2024
- 2 min read
Protect Orange VA was strongly represented at the April 25 BayWa/Sunfish Solar community meeting held in District 5. Safe to say - based on conversation eavesdropping - there were other like-minded Orange County citizens not part of our group who were in attendance to question the BayWa team.
The event offered nothing surprising in terms of content. It was held open-house style with posters around the room that shared information about solar and the Sunfish Solar project. Numerous representatives from the BayWa team were present to answer questions.
A representative said that BayWa is working on expanding the viewshed study (as suggested by the Planning Commission) and may select landscaping that is taller than the 6-foot tall evergreens currently part of the plan. That adjustment makes sense: the project application describes the fencing as 6 feet chain link and 3 strands of barbed wire, for a total of 7 feet. No one wants to see that. To screen the fencing as well as the panels, the vegetation buffer needs to be thickly planted and have taller plantings than what is currently identified in the plan.
One of the representative said that the benefit to our area is a more reliable grid. And we are getting that added reliability thanks to BayWa, because they must pay for any upgrades that are needed to support the project. They are paying for the substation and switchyard, which will ultimately belong to Dominion. Dominion's transmission lines will receive the facility's power for the grid. It seems there's a lot of money being shifted around, and it's difficult to identify benefits to residents of Orange County.
It was great to see county supervisors in attendance. Their interest is very much appreciated.
More community meetings coming up:
All meetings are at 6 pm.
Wednesday, May 1: District 1, Gordonsville United Methodist Church, 407 N. Main St, Gordonsville
Tuesday, May 7: District 2, Lafayette Station, 26322 Constitution Highway, Rhoadesville
Wednesday, May 22: District 3, Round Hill Inn, 771 Round Hill Rd., Orange
Thursday, May 23: District 4, Lafayette Station, 26322 Constitution Highway, Rhoadesville
I don't think they were too thrilled to see us! They did their best to be good hosts but I bet there was some "after incident" review that would have been fun to witness. It appeared all the others were possibly LOW residents, who never have to worry about living next door to these monstrosities.