New Freedom holds public hearing on ordinance requiring decommissioning bonds for solar facilities

Staff member (unnamed) opened a public hearing on an amendment to New Freedom's zoning ordinance that would require decommissioning bonds for solar energy facilities, saying the bond would pay to remove equipment and restore sites if an operator abandoned a project.

The amendment, described as an ordinance to amend Article 225 of the borough code to add a decommissioning bond requirement for solar energy facilities, was discussed but no vote or formal decision is recorded in the provided transcript. "What this actually does is it, it puts a bond requirement in place so that if the solar energy facility goes out of business and they do not take down their equipment, it gives us the money to go in and take down the equipment, clean up the area, and put it back the way it was before they started," the Staff member said.

Council members and staff discussed how the bond amount would be set. A Council member (unnamed) asked whether the ordinance sets a fixed bond amount; Staff member (unnamed) replied that there is no single amount set. Instead, the transcript records that the bond would be based on an engineering estimate of decommissioning costs and that the estimate would be reassessed every five years. "The way that that works is that there's a determination made as to how much the cost will be for decommissioning. And then I think it's reset every 5 years, is it, in the ordinance? So that, but it's based on the on whatever the there's an engineering, estimate provided as to the cost of decommissioning, and that's what the ordinance provides for," Staff member (unnamed) said.

Participants noted the estimate would vary with project size: a one-acre installation would cost less to remove than a two-acre site and therefore require a proportionally smaller bond. The transcript also records that the ordinance adds a definition for "solar energy facility," described in the discussion as "an area of land used for a solar collection system principally to capture solar energy, convert it to electrical energy or thermal, and supply electrical or thermal power." Public comment is recorded as none in the excerpt provided.

The transcript does not record a final vote, motion, or a direction to staff to return with a revised draft. The item was a public hearing and the meeting moved on to the next agenda item after closing the hearing portion in the excerpt.