There are a handful of certainties about the 50-megawatt solar array proposed to be installed on a 220-acre tract of Panton land.

If built, it would be Vermont’s largest by a wide margin — the state contains several 20-megawatt arrays. The main company behind this proposal, Freepoint Commodities LLC of Stamford, Conn., is already working on 20MW array proposals in Shaftsbury and Fair Haven.

The land the Panton array would cover would be mostly farmland to the west of Route 22A. The tract surrounds and mostly lies south of the intersection of Slang and West roads, and a large part of it would be outside the area Panton has designated for such installations in its Enhanced Energy Plan.

Power would be sent from the array through a new transmission line via Ferrisburgh to the VELCO substation in Vergennes. The consortium planning the array has contracts with farmers in Panton and Ferrisburgh for the array and transmission lines.

The Vermont Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has the final say on approval of a proposal put forth by a group going by the name Viridis Solar, including Freepoint; an affiliated Pennsylvania firm, SunEast Development LLC; and VT Real Estate Holdings 3 LLC.

When an application for the array is filed, Panton will be granted special standing before the PUC because of its Enhanced Energy Commission. But that standing is ill-defined by state law and has never been tested. It is unclear what weight the PUC will give Panton’s status.

Meanwhile, the proposed array is about as popular in Panton as the New York Yankees in Fenway Park or Wisconsin cheddar in Cabot. In a petitioned Nov. 5 advisory vote, town residents voted by 307-100 that they did not want the array as proposed.

In public meetings and interviews with the Independent, opponents say they favor renewable energy, but object to the array’s scale, visual impact, location on usable farmland, and its location about 75% outside the area designated in the town’s Enhanced Energy Plan for such arrays.

Opponents also criticized the likely out-of-state destination of the power, and the fact renewable energy credits would be transferred with it. They also wondered if the companies would, as promised, remove the array when it was no longer productive.

Most of the power from the proposed arrays appears destined for the larger New England grid, according to Viridis officials, although it is possible some or all could remain in Vermont. A Virdis fact sheet prepared before the Panton vote describes the destination of the power generated by the array as “Unknown.”

In that packet, the companies also estimated the array will generate about $350,000 a year in town taxes over the estimated 35-year lifespan of the array (not including land value), plus another $200,000 in school taxes. They have also pledged, per town officials, $450,000 a year in additional funding. Panton’s fiscal year 2024 budget was about $1.2 million.

The Panton selectboard had been on the fence prior to that vote, citing those potential tax and financial incentives to the town. But after working with legal counsel, they issued a statement in late December that backed residents’ sentiment, while retaining the board’s right to negotiate in executive sessions with Viridis representatives on the town’s behalf.

The statement read, in part, “We, the Selectboard of the Town of Panton, value the contributions of our citizens in all civic matters, and the vote held by the Town recently regarding the installation of the Viridis Solar project is a clear statement on the attitude of the citizens of the Town. We support the feelings and clear preference of the Town in this regard.”

As well as the unknown of how Panton’s energy plan might weigh in the PUC’s deliberations, at year’s end it was also uncertain what was the status of the Viridis companies’ plans. A spokesperson for the project told the Independent over the summer that an application would most likely be filed by the end of 2024.

But as of late December, Panton Town Clerk Kyle Rowe said the town had not received a notification from the PUC that would be required if a Viridis application had been filed.

Stay tuned in 2025.