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Monitor Local is a reporting initiative to meet the local information needs of people in towns across western and downeast Maine with public service reporting on town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more. It functions alongside The Maine Monitor’s investigative and in-depth reporting to serve the people of Maine.
HARRINGTON — Voters enacted a Solar Energy Ordinance on Monday allowing personal and commercial solar installations for on‑site use within town limits, with Planning Board approval, while prohibiting utility‑scale solar farms and any for‑profit power generation.
The vote, held during the annual town meeting at Narraguagus High School, drew overwhelming support, with no one in the 35‑person audience raising an objection.
According to the ordinance, its intent is to preserve Harrington’s rural character and “prevent industrial encroachment incompatible with community values.”
The ordinance authorizes personal ground‑mounted systems and personal and commercial roof‑mounted solar installations, but it does not authorize power to be distributed to the grid for profit.
The commercial provision applies only to Harrington businesses that install systems to power their own operations.
“Net metering is permitted for energy offset, but no profit may be derived” from the system, according to the ordinance.
Ground‑mounted systems may not be taller than 25 feet, with minimum setbacks of 25 feet from all property lines. Setbacks increase to 45 feet from town roads and 70 feet from state roads, according to the ordinance.
The systems may not exceed 2,500 square feet of total project airspace.
Owners of ground‑mounted systems must keep them maintained, including clearing vegetation, and must “reasonably” screen them from public roads and neighboring properties with landscaping, fencing or other features.
Roof‑mounted systems are exempt from screening requirements.
Owners must remove any system that remains nonoperational for more than a year and restore the site to its reasonably original condition.
All personal and commercial installations are subject to Planning Board approval.
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Judith Meyer is editor of Monitor Local, an initiative of The Maine Monitor focusing on local news in Oxford, Franklin, Somerset and Washington counties.
Editor emeritus of the Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel and a real First Amendment nudge, she is president of the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition, serves on the board of the New England First Amendment Coalition and is a member of the Right to Know Advisory Committee to the Maine Legislature.
A journalist since 1990, she was named Maine’s Journalist of the Year in 2003 and inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame in 2021.
Contact Judith with questions, concerns or story ideas: juMEMONdy themainemonitor org
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