Commissioners debate how to define 'solar farm'—suggest 1 MW threshold

Commissioners debated how to distinguish small residential or shared solar installations from commercial 'solar farms' subject to the new setbacks and supplemental standards. Kevin and other commissioners proposed defining a solar farm by generation capacity rather than panel count alone; a commonly cited threshold in the discussion was about 1 megawatt (roughly 150 panels), which would generally exclude rooftop and small‑scale shared systems.

Kevin explained that at residential scale a house typically uses around 8–12 kW, and that the kinds of utility‑scale projects the county has seen are measured in megawatts, not kilowatts. He and others said defining a solar farm by a 1 MW or similar generation threshold would avoid unintended burdens on small or cooperative systems while targeting the regulatory standards to projects with substantial infrastructure and safety needs.

Staff agreed this threshold could be a workable first pass and said the definition language would be revised accordingly in the draft submitted to the BOCC.