With solar power gaining more and more popularity as a viable source of renewable energy, the Scarborough Town Council has given initial approval to a zone change that would allow residential neighborhoods to install communal solar arrays.

During its Dec. 16 meeting, the council voted 7-0 to forward the proposal to the Planning Board for its review. The goal is to hold a public hearing and final approval at the council level on Jan. 20, according to Bill Donovan, council chairman.

He said the impetus behind the zoning change came from the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Portland, which is in the process of building a 13-lot subdivision on town-owned land off Broadturn Road and wanted to use solar power for the homes.

Donovan said the town already allows residential neighborhoods to install communal wind turbines, and also already allows individual homeowners to install solar panels or windmills to power their own homes and this proposal is just the logical next step.

He said before a communal solar array could be installed, the project would first require approval from the Planning Board, and an array would also have to meet any rules set up by a homeowner’s association.

In addition, Donovan said that state statute also restricts the number of homes that can be served by any one array to nine, which he said, “seems manageable,” both from a town and neighborhood perspective.

Prior to the Dec. 16 council meeting, Town Planner Dan Bacon said the goal behind the zone change is to “enable more flexibility in the installation of solar panels to generate power for homes and neighborhoods. In particular, to enable neighborhoods to use their common land to site solar panels to meet their energy needs.”

He said the town’s Long Range Planning Committee reviewed the solar proposal first and sent a positive recommendation to the Town Council.

Bacon added, “The town has been trying to be a leader in (installing) alternative energy initiatives (by putting) solar panels on a few of our public buildings, (buying) an all-electric code enforcement vehicle and our tri-generation facility. This is another proactive, alternative energy initiative that we think can help our residents become more energy independent.”

And, in its memo to the Town Council, the Long Range Planning Committee said solar power is “seemingly becoming the most preferred, cost effective, reliable source of renewable energy” for both residential and commercial use.

Phil Coupe, a co-founder of ReVision Energy, northern New England’s solar energy leader, said his company installed Maine’s first community solar farm in 2014.

He said the number of panels needed for a cluster of homes “depends on how much electricity the homes are using, and how much of their electricity demand they want to meet with solar.”

Coupe said the average household electricity consumption in Maine is about 8,000 kilowatt hours per year and it requires “roughly a 6.5 (kilowatt) solar array to generate” that amount of power.

He said right now ReVision Energy is accepting clients for a community solar farm being built in Pownal in the spring and the gross cost for the neighborhood array is $25,935.

However, currently such arrays qualify for a 30 percent federal tax credit, so the net investment would be closer to $18,000.

“While it may cost roughly the same as a new car, the great thing about a solar investment is that it pays for itself over time through avoided utility costs, and it reduces carbon pollution,” Coupe said.

He also said a solar array is capable of generating “highly valuable electricity year round and once it has paid for itself, in about 10 years, it delivers an annuity in the form of free electricity for decades.”

Coupe said most solar panels made for residential use include a 25-year warranty and have an expected useful life of more than 40 years.

He said that while households “can derive 100 percent of their annual power needs from solar energy, there is a wrinkle with community solar farms in that the home must be connected to the utility grid because the solar array is located remotely.”

The most common method of sharing the energy produced by a communal solar array, Coupe said, is for the solar electricity to pass through a utility meter and then the amount of power produced is credited to the account of the homeowner.

While Maine is the most heavily forested state in the nation, Coupe said, “We are at the same latitude as sunny places like Barcelona, Spain, and Marseilles, France, so Maine benefits from a powerful solar resource. We actually get 33 percent more sunshine per year than Germany, the world leader in solar energy adoption.”

He added that Maine’s “predictable solar resource is easier to harvest than wind energy because solar panels can be installed almost anywhere and there are no moving parts.”

Coupe said since ReVision started in 2002 the cost for residential solar panels has dropped by 75 percent, “allowing Mainers to derive a strong economic and environmental return on their solar investment.”

He also said that these days solar-powered heat pumps are one of ReVision’s most popular installations because they can “drastically reduce oil consumption for home heating (by) providing zero emissions heat at the cost equivalent of paying 89 cents per gallon for oil.”

A CLOSER LOOK

The Scarborough Town Council is expected to hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20, on a zone change that would allow residential neighborhoods to install communal solar arrays.

An example of a residential solar array in a neighborhood in Windham, N.H. Scarborough is discussing similar solar farms for residential neighborhoods.