Hartford Business – Bloomfield bows CT’s first ‘shared solar’ project

A parcel of town-owned land in Bloomfield is now home to the first operational solar panel array in Connecticut’s “shared clean energy” program.

The Bloomfield Board of Education has dibs on 60 percent of the output from the 1.6-megawatt, ground-mounted solar farm located off of Blue Hills Avenue, while the rest will go to residential properties not well suited for roof-mounted solar panels, including low-income housing.

Multiple utility customers sharing in the output of a solar farm is common in Massachusetts and New York, but shared solar has been elusive in Connecticut.

The Bloomfield project, owned by Ameresco, is one of three selected by the state in 2017 for a pilot program created by the legislature in 2015. The other two are in Shelton and Thompson.

The three solar farms, totaling just over five megawatts in capacity, came after the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection scrapped its original request for proposals amid concerns over prices and siting restrictions.

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