30-megawatt, 100-acre array approved for Fitzwilliam; largest rooftop project goes online in Manchester

The state Site Evaluation Committee has unanimously approved the state’s first utility-scale solar project — a 30-megawatt array planned for a 100-acre site in the southwestern town of Fitzwilliam.

The Chinook Solar project is being developed by Florida-based NextEra Energy, which also owns the Seabrook nuclear power plant. But the company is also a big investor in solar, with arrays in 26 states, including one in Vermont and two underway in Maine.

NextEra is expected to sell the 30 megawatts of power Chinook produces to energy suppliers in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

“The Chinook Solar Project will bring numerous benefits to the area,” project director Heath Barefoot told New Hampshire Public Radio, “including construction jobs and increased revenue to the town with little impact to current town resources.”

Chinook is the first such project large enough to require approval by the Site Evaluation Committee, since until now almost all of the solar systems in the state are much smaller. The state’s largest solar array is at Fidelity Investments in Merrimack, providing about 3 megawatts of power. The second-largest is about 2 megawatts, owned by the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative in Moultonborough.

ReVision Energy is nearing completion on the state’s largest rooftop solar array, providing just over a megawatt of power at beverage distributor Bellavance Beverage Co.’s location on Pettengill Road in Londonderry.

That installation involves 3,088 solar panels, offsetting more than 100% of the company’s annual electricity needs while cutting costs and carbon pollution. The 1,158-kilowatt DC solar array is projected to generate 1,321,541 kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually.

Joe Bellavance IV, president of the company, said the array “fit with our commitment to reducing the footprint we leave behind for future generations. We spend a lot of time preparing our kids for the future but often overlook the environment we are leaving them. The products we sell are largely agricultural — hops, barley — and depend on reliable water sources. We need the planet to be able to support those things for a long, long time.”