A Campaign to Grow Solar and Protect Nature

Massachusetts needs to transition away from the dirty fossil fuels that are overheating our planet and destroying our ecosystems. To do that, we need to build a lot more clean energy—and quickly.

Unfortunately, many large solar projects developed in Massachusetts over the last decade have been built at the expense of forests, wetlands, and top-quality farmland. This pattern isn’t good for the planet. Natural lands absorb heat-trapping pollution from the atmosphere. When we convert them to clean energy projects, we’re using one tool against climate change but losing another. We need to find a way to scale up solar and nature together.

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Generating Clean Energy Without Risking Forests and Farms

Since 2010, over 5,000 acres of forest, wetlands, and farmlands have been developed for solar in Massachusetts, resulting in carbon emissions equivalent to 110,000 cars, the destruction of crucial habitat for wildlife, and the loss of local food production. 

To find a pathway for building the clean energy we need while protecting the nature we have, Mass Audubon teamed up with Harvard Forest to produce Growing Solar, Protecting Nature, an analysis of Massachusetts’ options for siting of future solar energy projects.

This report shows that we can build significantly more solar on existing rooftops, parking lots, and already developed lands, while leaving our most ecologically rich forests and productive farmlands intact. This work showed that we also needed changes to state policy and incentives to achieve this outcome.

Campaign Priorities

Implement Clean Energy Legislation

An Act upgrading the grid and protecting ratepayers creates a new framework for siting and permitting clean energy infrastructure, including solar facilities. The legislation will speed up permitting clean energy projects while minimizing impacts on nature and environmental justice communities.

The law requires a data-driven statewide approach to identify low-impact sites preferred for energy development. And it implements a standard for all projects to avoid and minimize impacts on irreplaceable natural resources. Energy developers will be required to mitigate impacts that cannot be avoided.

The Act also requires that projects undergo a “cumulative impact analysis” to assess the potential for additional harms to communities already overburdened from existing energy infrastructure, such as fuel storage tanks and generation plants, and aims to eliminate or reduce incremental impacts.

Under the new framework, oversight of small and medium-sized solar will be given back to local governments, who will issue a single “consolidated” permit, with guidance, criteria, and technical support provided by state. Larger projects will be permitted by the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, but towns and cities will have the ability to engage in that process.

The state will be working with stakeholders and local governments to develop the details to implement this new system for solar and energy siting. Mass Audubon will deeply engage in these processes to ensure they deliver needed protections for nature.

Ensure Incentives for Solar Siting Prioritize Nature

The state Department of Energy Resources (DOER) subsidizes solar development through a program it calls the “SMART” program. The incentives for solar development under SMART are larger or smaller depending on the type of system that gets built. For example, solar panels located on a landfill get additional incentives.

The state is currently updating its rules for SMART to reflect trends in the locations and costs of development, with the goal of using the market to steer more solar on previously developed lands such as on rooftops and parking lots. However, some solar developers are pushing back and looking for more lax restrictions to place solar in critical habitat and other areas with high natural resource values.

Mass Audubon will leverage the voices of our members and supporters to ensure forest, farmlands, and wetlands are protected.