The moratorium is designed to give the town’s planning board some breathing room as it juggles multiple solar projects at once, Supervisor Russell Pokorny said. 

RIC Energy is looking to install a 5-megawatt ground-mounted solar photovoltaic farm on a nearly 75-acre parcel of land in the New Scotland Hamlet located between 1857 and 1891 New Scotland Road. 

Free webinars, put on by Cornell University and Penn State with assistance from the New York and Pennsylvania farm bureaus, are designed for municipal officials so that theories about best planning practices around the clean-energy transition can be put into practice. 

The Enterprise spoke with Cornell researcher David Kay, who is currently studying this very topic, and Knox resident David Whipple, who lives on a farm that became home to the Hilltowns’ first commercial solar array, for their perspectives on the relationship between farmers, agriculture, and solar companies.

The proposed five-megawatt solar array on Dunnsville Road still has to be sent to the Altamont-Guilderland Referral Committee because proposals for town projects within 1,200 feet of the village boundary or within 1,200 feet of Altamont’s current or future water system must be referred to the village for a recommendation. 

The proposed five-megawatt solar array on Dunnsville Road still has to be sent to the Altamont-Guilderland Referral Committee because proposals for town projects within 1,200 feet of the village boundary or within 1,200 feet of Altamont’s current or future water system must be referred to the village for a recommendation. 

Borrego Solar is seeking variances to be able to clear-cut more trees than code allows and to have its solar panels located closer to all the neighbors’ property lines than what is currently allowed by law, which was one of the reforms included in the April amendments package to the town’s solar law.

The New Scotland solar law’s prime-soil and soils-of-statewide-importance provisions make siting a solar project in town nearly impossible. 

KNOX — A 4.4-megawatt solar farm that’s proposed for 1688 Thompsons Lake Road, an undeveloped Knox property of roughly 33 acres owned by Mark and Janet Viscio, will not be subject until a public hearing until at least Decem

Borrego Solar Systems is seeking to install 20 acres of solar panels on a vacant 27-acre site along Altamont Road in New Scotland. The New Scotland Zoning Board set an Oct. 27 public hearing for the project.