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Residents question solar efficiency, local grid benefits and environmental effects
Summary
At Hamlin's hearing, residents cited independent research suggesting solar facilities average 15'17% annual efficiency, questioned whether local projects lower electric bills, and asked whether panel arrays could alter local weather or interfere with farm equipment GPS.
Several speakers raised technical and distributional questions about large-scale solar arrays, challenging whether the facilities deliver local benefits. Rob Westcott said independent reporting indicated typical annual facility efficiency of about 15'17%, and several residents said they had seen no benefit in local electricity costs.
"They're actually at like 15 to 17% on average basis," Rob Westcott said, citing his research. Other speakers raised unverified concerns that reflected sunlight could interfere with GPS systems used on tractors and that evaporation from panels rather than circulation could affect local weather. A resident also asked whether electricity from local facilities would be exported offsite'for example, to New York City or a Somerset data center'rather than serve the town.
Those technical claims were raised as reasons to limit where large fields may be sited; the board did not present independent utility data in the hearing and said the proposal confines large projects to constrained industrial parcels to reduce local impacts.
