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EAST WINDSOR: Locals question solar panel plan

Some East Windsor residents call McGraw-Hill proposal problematic

By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
   EAST WINDSOR — New details were released on a 48-acre solar panel array McGraw-Hill proposed along Princeton-Hightstown Road as East Windsor’s Planning Board unanimously approved the company’s site plan.
   And so it did with new concerns.
   About 20 residents along the southern side of the proposed field pelted McGraw-Hill’s attorney, engineers and officials with questions as to the scope of the construction.
   Residents asked candidly about the potential impact the project would have on everything from the noise around the surrounding neighborhoods to the local deer population.
   Lyle Rawlings, president and CEO of Advanced Solar Products, the company that will build the solar panel array for McGraw-Hill, told the Planning Board that 58,800 panels, each about 6 feet by 3 feet in size, will be installed next to the company’s data center. Each panel has a peak production capacity of 240 watts of electricity, meaning theoretically, the field can produce a maximum of about 14.1 megawatts.
   The field would “avoid the creation of enough CO2 (carbon dioxide) to take the equivalent of 7,500 cars off the road,” Mr. Rawlings said.
   The field would be “low profile,” with the panels no more than 21 inches off of the ground, Mr. Rawlings told the Planning Board.
   Keith Smith, a civil engineer working on solar panel array, told residents and the Planning Board that a 7-foot fence will surround the site. The panels will be 200 feet away from Princeton-Hightstown Road, 50 feet from the sides and 100 feet away from the homes to the south, and there will be additional landscaping buffers separating the home properties from the panel field. All construction traffic would enter and exit through an access off Princeton-Hightstown Road, away from the homes.
   Though board members and most of the residents said they sup- ported the project, they critiqued some aspects of the construction and its operation.
   Planning Board Vice Chairman Skip Berman took note of the inverters the solar panel array would use.
   Mr. Rawlings told the board the inverters, which convert the DC electric from the panels to the AC power used by the equipment in the data center, create a maximum noise level of about 80 decibels during their peak operation in the early afternoon. With the landscape buffers, he projected a noise output of 40 decibels reaching some of the homes bordering the south side of the proposed field, which Mr. Rawlings equated to “the noise of a bedroom, or a little quieter than a library.”
   ”I think you’re being optimistic about what the landscaping will do,” Mr. Berman responded. “40? That’s a suburban street.”
   Homeowners living near the proposed field received notices around May 10 alerting them to the proposal and to Monday’s Planning Board meeting at East Windsor’s Municipal Building.
   Edward and Jacqueline Zegarowicz, who received one of those notices, asked about the construction traffic.
   ”During construction, if there’s going to be a truck, if there’s going to be posts driven in it, what kind of damage can we anticipate if any damage to our foundations?” Jacqueline Zegarowicz asked.
   ”No posts driven in, none of that, the way this is designed,” Mr. Rawlings responded.
   Mark Lang, who lives on Wilmor Drive, was pessimistic about the landscaping buffer McGraw-Hill promised around the field. He showed the planning board and McGraw-Hill officials photos he claimed to have taken of nearby Shiseido America’s landscaping, showing dead trees and vast fields covered only by short grass and sparse shrubbery.
   ”I just like to make sure your buffer is adequate, because what’s behind Shiseido, quite frankly, is a joke,” Mr. Lang said at the meeting.
   After the meeting, Chris Norton, who lives on Scott Road, told the Herald he had questions of his own, recalling the field used to be used agriculturally. He said he was not sure if the work would kick up some of the pesticides previously used there into the air.
   ”I am conceptually all for it. I’m not keen on foreign fuel dependence,” Mr. Norton said. “I get the benefit of building solar power, (I’m) just concerned, because it’s in my front yard, what the impact will be on my property.”
   Mayor Janice Mironov said McGraw-Hill will have to have the Town Council approve a developer’s agreement and the company will also need to acquire a permit to begin the construction.
   Dante Dipirro with Advance Solar Products said once construction begins, it should take a total of six months to complete the project.