Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem in favor of an “all of the above” approach to lowering energy costs. But are large solar farms being unfairly placed in a single part of the state? Rep. Carol Hall (R-Enfield) shares frustrations from her constituents and her idea for making things more equitable.
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Mike Hydeck: Now lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said publicly an all above strategy is needed when it comes to bringing down what feels like sky high electricity rates here in Connecticut. But recently, large solar panel farms are getting some serious pushback from neighbors in Enfield. Representative Carol Hall is on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. Republican from Enfield, you have constituents right in the middle of this debate. Welcome to Face the Facts. Good to see you, I’m so glad you were able to be here. So this was such an interesting debate, because everybody wants to do clean energy, everybody wants to bring in new kinds of energy to bring the prices down. When you go to these meetings, what do you hear?
Carol Hall: So it’s kind of interesting how we handle these huge solar utilities, right? When you have building projects going on in your community, your homes, additions, you and I have to comply with local planning and zoning regulations. Right? These huge what they call solar farms, we call them solar utilities, up by me, are not regulated at all by local regulation. So our local communities, our local planning and zoning departments, have no say on the placement of where these utilities go. So it’s all done through the siting council process. It’s done and overseen by this huge regulation body for the state of Connecticut.
Mike Hydeck: So the siting council has how many people on it? Any idea?
Carol Hall: I don’t, but it doesn’t have local representation on it. That’s one of the bills that’s working its way through this legislation process.
Mike Hydeck: That was my next question, Who is it? So if there aren’t local representation, who sits on it now?
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Carol Hall: Right. It’s just regulatory people.
Mike Hydeck: DEEP? People from environmental protection?
Carol Hall: Yes. And their… their sole mission is oversight of these projects. They are so, there’s so little regulation on local say in the process right now. We’re trying to change that. So some of the bills you’re going to see coming through really revert some of the oversight back to the local officials. So your local first selectman, your local town council. Yeah, so we’re hoping that, what’s happening right now is most of these solar arrays are focused in one region, which is my district. I represent East Windsor and Enfield.
Mike Hydeck: But you’re talking acres of panels, right? Like, a significant amount.
Carol Hall: Oh, hundreds, yeah. And basically it’s a third of the state solar arrays in this one area of the state. All in Enfield and East Windsor.
Mike Hydeck: Okay. And there’s a reason for that. We did a story on this recently. It’s because there’s a lot of farmland. It’s flat, and it’s connected to distribution lines. So once you put those panels up, it goes straight, straight into the grid, or to short run, is that right?
Carol Hall: Exactly. And the problem with that is there are placements up there that are perfect for these solar arrays. And if you look at everybody’s plan of conservation development that the state tells us as communities, you have to have a template for your town for 10 years. In the plan of conservation development, a lot of these towns have addressed where they want these solar arrays. For example, commercial zoning, industrial zoning. Parking lots. bunch
Mike Hydeck: So if you had a bunch of warehouses out in a field, it would make sense to put them there.
Carol Hall: Yeah. Or even brownfield areas. There’s so many brownfield areas throughout the state that we could actually place these solar arrays and they would have zero impact on our neighborhoods. So what we’re saying is not that we don’t want these projects, but there’s a place for them, and it’s not in people’s backyards.
Mike Hydeck: Your constituents, we’ve interviewed some of them. They’re hearing a buzz and a hum, as far as living next to them.
Carol Hall: It’s absolutely horrible, and they have no say. That’s the problem is we’re not giving our communities a say in where these projects are placed.
Mike Hydeck: So Governor Lamont went and toured one of these sites this week. Obviously, you’re Republican. He’s a Democrat. He said to us on camera, hey, I think we’re kind of out of balance here. Were you heartened by that? What was your take when you heard him say that
Carol Hall: I was. I was really happy to get him there. I had sent a letter to his office weeks ago and asked him, please just come in person see what we’re dealing with up here. Because looking at paper, it doesn’t, you just don’t get the real perspective. He came. He took a tour, which we were really happy to have him do. And I think he saw for himself, yeah, there’s a problem here. We’ve got to be a little bit more equitable where these projects are placed. And we talk about it with affordable housing, right? Everybody’s got to do their fair share. Well, we’re feeling the same way with these solar arrays.
Mike Hydeck: If 30% of the ones in the state are all in your area, that’s not quite spread out.
Carol Hall: It’s even worse than that, Mike. There’s another project that’s coming down the pike that’s slated to go in East Windsor and Ellington. So if this project is approved, we’ll have 45% to 50% of the solar arrays in this region. It’s so unfair. It really is.
Mike Hydeck: One last question. I have less than 30 seconds. Do you feel confident that the siting council makeup will end up changing after this? Because you said legislation is underway to maybe add farmers and business leaders and families.
Carol Hall: So local residents, wherever these projects are going to be heard will have an opportunity, one person to be on this. I think it’s got a pretty good shot of passing. There’s another bill that’s even more important to my area, which is HB 5551, which really reverts the control back to the local municipalities once you hit 100 megahertz in your town.
Mike Hydeck: 5551.
Carol Hall: 5551, people look at that one.
Mike Hydeck: Representative, thank you so much for coming in. We appreciate your time.
Carol Hall: Thank you.

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