Commissioners say solar energy systems should be no more than 500 acres | News | times-herald.com

A potential 3,000-acre solar farm looming near Chattahoochee State Bend Park has Coweta County residents and officials drawing a line in the sand —or rather, on the map.

At a work session held on Thursday morning, the Coweta County Board of Commissioners directed county staff to cap the parcel size for solar farms at 500 acres and ensure that a solar energy facility would have a footprint of at least 10 acres.

In previous public hearings for the ordinance, Coweta residents expressed opposition to a potential 3,000-acre solar farm near Chattahoochee State Bend Park and voiced concerns about what the ordinance would allow.

The commissioners also had their own issues at the public hearings related to chemicals from the solar panels contaminating the groundwater.

At the work session, Assistant Administrator Sandy Wisenbaker presented the commissioners with an example of what 3,000 acres would look like.

On a map, Wisenbaker drew a red line from Lower Fayetteville Road to Mary Freeman Road, then south to Poplar Road, west to Interstate 85, and back to the starting point on Lower Fayetteville Road.

The area within the rectangular shape is approximately 2,400 acres — smaller than the proposed solar farm but large enough to show the large portion of the county it could take up.

Wisenbaker then demonstrated to the commissioners what a 500-acre area would look like.

She set a point at the House of Pickleball and drew a line to the Central Educational Center. Then, she extended the line west to Newnan High School and back up to the HOP. According to Wisenbaker, the land within the triangle was approximately 500 acres.

"If we did a maximum of 500 acres, that would be in the box in the highlight," she said.

"Five hundred (acres) would be something I'd be okay with," said Chairman John Reidelbach.

Commissioner Bob Blackburn said he was concerned about the overall use of that much land for solar.

"If I was more comfortable with the lifespan of the units, I think it'd make a difference,” he said. “We're talking about a lot of good land."

According to Wisenbaker, special-use permits would be required from the county to construct solar energy systems larger than one acre.

Reidelbach said the decommissioning of solar panels still needed to be addressed in the ordinance.

He also requested mitigation for weather-related issues to be added to the ordinance.

County Administrator Michael Fouts said the county's environmental code would cover the land disturbance from potential solar energy system construction.

The county's environmental ordinance mirrors State law, according to Public Works Administrator Tod Handley.

Commissioner Bob Blackburn had some hesitancy regarding solar energy overall because of the inability to store the energy produced by the panels.

"Nuclear is the ultimate answer, and solar surely is something in the meanwhile, but the cloudy days and rainy days and the overproduction during those days, companies like Freyer having battery storage where that power wouldn't be lost, that would change my mind greatly if we had the storage capacity for electricity that's going to be wasted if it's not used during the day," he said.

"If we don't have some measure of an ordinance, (energy companies) are still going to come," Reidelbach said. "At least we have an outline that we can base it on when they come to us."

The public hearing regarding the ordinance will continue at the commissioners' Nov. 5 meeting.