As Massachusetts looks to meet clean energy goals by 2050, will Berkshire County’s verdant farmland become a sea of indigo tiles?
Not if the Berkshire County legislative delegation can help it.
A map showing solar energy possibilities across the state created by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources shows high potential for solar farms in Berkshire County. With Massachusetts clean energy goals setting net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and land cheaper in this part of the state, Berkshire farms and fields are vulnerable to solar development.
And, thanks to a clean energy bill — which the Senate passed 38-2 on Oct. 24 and the House is expected to pass in coming days — the state may be given more control over where and when solar farms are built. In an effort to speed up the process of reaching the state’s clean energy goals, the bill overhauls the state’s siting and permitting process, taking much of the control out of local government.
In an Oct. 10 letter to Berkshire lawmakers, Thomas Matuszko, executive director of Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, said he was “alarmed by siting proposals that will drastically impact our environment and economy, especially the removal of local control from permitting and the potential disregard of local input in decision making.”