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Through its news reporting and analysis, the nonprofit Adirondack Explorer furthers the wise stewardship, public enjoyment for all, community vitality, and lasting protection of the Adirondack park.
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Adirondack Explorer
The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
High tariffs, federal and state policy changes and increased costs of connecting to the electrical grid have suspended the largest permitted solar project in the Adirondack Park.
The planned 40-megawatt facility is slated to harvest the sun’s power on about 200 acres of the Close brothers’ 800-acre dairy farm, a fifth-generation operation that overlooks Great Sacandaga Lake in the town of Mayfield.
Canadian solar developer Boralex received its permit through the state Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission (ORES) last April. The permit for the project, called Foothills Solar, requires commercial operation within seven years.
But site work has been stagnant, and Boralex spokesperson Zack Hutchins confirmed that conditions to build are not ideal at this time.
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“We want to make it happen,” Hutchins said. “We’re just dealing with the realities right now of the costs associated with this type of development.”
Farmer Jon Close, who has a lease with Boralex to supplement the income of his 70-cow dairy, said the economics of the solar project is another side effect of “the way the world is” these days. He likened the project to making stew in a crock pot and waiting for some of the ingredients to cook a while longer.
One of the problems: A flood of projects in various stages of development, all jockeying for access to the state’s electrical grid.
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is a nonprofit organization that keeps track of the state’s electrical grid.
NYISO conducts engineering and electrical studies of major projects connecting to New York’s grid to ensure the grid capacity is there and determine what infrastructure might need upgrading. Before the state passed the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, NYISO had just a few projects to review each year.
But once the state became a staunch promoter of renewable energy projects, NYISO became flooded with hundreds of projects to study, all at different levels in the review process. Some developers didn’t even own the land or have a lease in place for where they were proposing a project.
Marguerite Wells, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, said energy developers were “throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck.”
“NYISO was tired of having a backlog of projects that were not real, and yet they were having to spend time and effort studying them as if they were real, only to discover that the developers had already walked away and weren’t serious anymore,” Wells said.
As a result, NYISO began a new process called a cluster study. The two-year review involves looking at all energy projects intending to connect to the grid. There are fees to join the study and steep fines for leaving the study. The financial collateral is intended to focus NYISO’s time and effort on serious projects and weed out the more speculative ones.
The first round of projects are currently in the second year of the cluster study.
Kevin Lanahan, senior vice president of external affairs and corporate communications for NYISO, said: “Improvements to the Cluster Study process continues to be a top priority for the NYISO.”
Wells said the changes have helped the state hone in on projects that are ready. This summer, New York will see the most construction of renewable energy projects in its history, she said.
With its ORES permit in hand and Close waiting for panels to arrive, it’s hard to put the Foothills Solar project in the speculative category. But without the grid study, Boralex is unable to bid for a contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to move forward.
For Boralex, the changing process has meant more money for a smaller return at a time when high tariffs and inflation are impacting development across the board.
While the 40-megawatt project is twice the size of the next largest permitted solar facility in the Adirondack Park, by statewide standards, the project is small.
No matter the size of a project, the costs for grid upgrades don’t scale, Hutchins added. Foothills Solar was originally part of NYISO’s first cluster study, but Boralex backed out.
“For a 200-megawatt project like one of the ones we’re developing up near the Canadian border, the interconnection costs can be near or similar to a 40-megawatt project like Foothills Solar,” Hutchins said. “A 200-megawatt project can absorb that cost farther than a 40-megawatt one can.”
Hutchins hopes that the renewable energy industry, the state and utility companies can work together on minimizing the cost of upgrades or finding a way to share the costs across projects.
Wells said ACENY is currently studying why so many projects withdrew from NYISO’s first cluster study, suspecting the study began to show a high price tag for connecting to the grid. Wells said she’s unsure why utility companies have quoted such high costs. In some cases she thinks they have quadrupled in price from what she normally would have expected.
“If that trend continues, we’re not going to build any more projects, Adirondack Park or not,” she said.
On Thursday, Close said he was looking at the sun shining on Great Sacandaga Lake. He’d been up early preparing to plant corn. Inflation and tariffs have hit his farming business, too. He has added beef cows to the mix. Selling milk isn’t enough on its own at his dairy’s size, and Close doesn’t want a bigger herd.
He said he’s optimistic that Boralex will get panels up soon.
“Everybody’s in the same boat,” he said. “We just all are going to have to get through it.”
Gwen is an award-winning journalist covering environmental policy for the Explorer since January 2020. She is a member of the Legislative Correspondents Association of New York. Gwen has worked at various… More by Gwendolyn Craig
14 Comments
So let me get this straight; the Democrats pushed for going all electric and doubled down on renewables energy by giving all types of tax breaks and incentives but never really had a full plan on how to accomplish it?
I guess you missed the part about speculative developers seeking approval of projects that were not real. This is not government’s fault, but rests with the private sector.
And of course, your partisan attack is misguided, because you also missed the role of Trump’s tariff’s and inflation: “more money for a smaller return at a time when high tariffs and inflation are impacting development across the board.”
The tariffs did drive up the cost of buying windmills and solar panels from China but that has nothing to do with the fact that there was never a sustainable plan. What do speculative developers have to do with anything. Companies test the waters all the time with only a small percentage happening. This alone shows that it is not a sustainable initiative with no plan. There is a place for electric or hydrogen vehicles but to think there will be this massive shift without a way to make it work for people was very near sighted and to be honest more about getting votes than really saving the environment.
Make a requirement that collectors tall enough for cattle to graze underneath. They’re doing that out west with sheep, cattle and veggies, saying veggies grow better with some shade and use less water than full sun. (You can’t eat electricity — save farmlands and woodlands). Put solar on buildings or SHARE with cattle.
besides the lease money to Mr Close , Will he be able to power his farm off of these panels Or , How will this benefit the electrical customer base of the region ,will it lower their electrical rates at all ,and provide power for their homes ,or does it all go onto the grid to be sold to higher bidding customers down state , or to data centers , We have this Boralex company putting in a Solar Project a few miles up the road from us on the Brasher /Massena border ,Not quite in the Adirondacks , a few miles outside the Blue line , , near the Canadian border , and from the info recieved it won’t be benefiting us Nat.Grid ,Massena Electric or Nyseg customers at all ,with our rates or useage , which the rates just keep going up and up , Mean while it seems that a lot of our open space keeps getting gobbled up by these arrays all over , and with the community meetings annouce with hardly any notice besides little articles in Newspapers the majority of the people don’t read , these projects get passed rght through by our NYS ORES agency that No one can get through to inAlbany to ask about the permitting , Wish the best to Mr Closer , but to the rest of us we need somemore oversight on this Boralex and other huge solar company’s before we are all over run .
If the solar tech is so efficient and popular, why does the government need to offer tax incentives and allocate tax dollar give aways to these foreign solar companies to get these things installed?
You’re onto something there Billy. Their really is little financial benefit to the companies outside of the tax incentives put in place by the Democrats to push their all electric narrative. That is why the windmill companies sell every 4-5 years, the tax incentives run out. Unfortunately they didn’t put anything in place to strengthen the grid to handle the additional output.
Solar facilities pay 10 TIMES higher grid interconnection fees than a fossil natural gas plant. Solar (and wind) are bearing the burden for upgrading the grid, which is a benefit to ALL users. Solar also provides cheaper power that keeps rates lower for everyone. The economic reality is exactly the opposite of what you claim.
This doesn’t take the loss of land into account. I’m all for solar but not ruining needed farm land to do it. NYC is a huge user of power and it seems like we are always trying to make more power for them. How about if they start putting solar panels on all roofs. As usual we bear the burden of the city. Time for them to become their own state.
Billy – you’re missing the forest for the trees. If you’re concerned about subsidies, look at how much subsidy is provided to fossil fuels. Here is an IMF study (and IMF is no hippie green climate activist organization):
“In 2024, explicit [fossil] subsidies were $0.73 trillion, or 0.6 percent of global GDP, with consumer and producer subsidies accounting for 85 and 15 percent of the total, respectively, while implicit subsidies were $6.7 trillion, or 5.8 percent of global GDP. ”
https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies#A%20Global%20Picture%20of%20Energy%20Subsidies
Doesn’t mean we agree with oil subsidies either.
Now that DJT is a big fan boy of Xi Jingping, he might want to consider the following: (or does he think Xi Jingping is stupid?)
“China is undergoing a renewable energy revolution. In 2025 alone, it added nearly 450 gigawatts (GW) (or 450 billion watts) of clean energy capacity, which was more solar and twice as much wind as the rest of the world combined.
Before 2010, China had only limited renewable energy. Today, electricity generated by huge wind and solar farms that stretch out across mountains, deserts, on rooftops and off the coast, account for a quarter of electricity production.
The country achieved the goal of adding 1,200 GW of wind and solar capacity to the grid by 2030 five years ahead of schedule. China also produces over 80% of the world’s photovoltaic panels, helping drive down costs and accelerating the clean energy transition globally.”
Exactly.
Trump plays the short game. Xi Jingping plays the long game. This is particularly evident in U.S. and China energy policies. It’s also true with respect to Trump’s war in Iran. But on both counts, the U.S is losing in the short-term, and is on a course to lose in the long-term. More pain for the North Country.
So is time to cut down the Adirondack forest and install the solar panels and put windmills on all the mountain tops? Please don’t do it in my back yard.
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Through its news reporting and analysis, the nonprofit Adirondack Explorer furthers the wise stewardship, public enjoyment for all, community vitality, and lasting protection of the Adirondack Park.
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