BERNE — The Berne Planning Board will have a full plate in 2025, having received a new solar project proposal last month, while a second, previously tabled project is expected to come back before the board in March.

They’re the first two projects that will be considered under the town’s solar law as it was amended by the Republican-backed board in 2022, overriding the earlier version of the law that had been crafted by Democrats and was seen as more restrictive. 

RIC Energy project

The newest proposed project is a 3.8-megawatt facility from RIC Energy, operating under Berne PV LLC, and would be located at 28 Jansen Lane in Berne. RIC submitted its application for site plan review in January this year. 

According to project documents on the town’s website, it would occupy 23 acres on the 160-acre property, and would need two area variances — one to be situated less than 200 feet from the property’s southern border, and the second to be less than 100 feet from wetlands — in addition to a special-use permit. 

As mapped, the project would be about a half-mile south of the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Central School District, with a forest and fields between the two. 

Studies concluded that noise, glare, and environmental impacts would be negligible. 

RIC Energy has a considerable footprint in the Enterprise coverage area already, with a 5-megawatt facility that had been approved in Knox in 2022, and with a 4.5-megawatt project in New Scotland that was approved by the town’s planning Board last month. 

The company had attempted to build a second project in Knox, but was ultimately turned down in 2023 following a wave of resident concerns about the location.  

TJA Energy project

The second proposed solar project in Berne, by TJA Energy, was previously covered by The Enterprise when it was first proposed in January of 2024, but had been tabled last fall so the company could review and amend the plans. 

Under the original proposal, the project would have been a 4.25-megawatt facility at the intersection of Canaday Hill and Switzkill Roads, also not far from BKW. 

TJA engineer Michael Frateschi told The Enterprise this week that TJA expects to bring the project back to the planning board in March, with the only major change being that it will no longer need an area variance. The original plan had the project 16 feet over the 400-foot setback requirement. 

Although it had never gone to a public hearing in the time between the original proposal and when it was tabled, the project has generated little controversy, with the planning board reporting in July that it received only one letter from a resident, who was in favor of the project, according to meeting minutes. 

TJA has been eyeing that property for a solar project since at least 2019, when it was preparing an application but then was sent scrambling by the Democrats’ version of the town’s solar law, which was adopted in December of that year, and had placed a limit of 10 acres on solar projects.

The current limit is 30 acres, well above the roughly 20 acres that TJA’s project would cover on the 46-acre property. Frateschi told The Enterprise last year that the company had been following the amendment process as it unfolded, but was not in communication with the town at that time.