Plans for a solar farm in Scott Twp. will move forward.
Supervisors last week approved a conditional use application for a ground-mounted solar energy facility with about 5,200 panels.
Denver-based developer Pivot Energy and Donald Race plan to build the 2.7-megawatt AC facility on 10 acres of a property on Carbondale Road near the South Abington Twp. border. The plans call for the panels to be mounted on a single-axis tracker, with the project set back 100 feet from the parcel’s boundaries, surrounded by an 8-foot-high fence and trees.
Race, along with Elizabeth, Cheryl and Barbara Race, has owned the property since 1995.
The array would produce about 4,370 MWh annually, enough for more than 300 residences, Gordon Woodcock, Pivot’s project director, said in the application. It would be accessed by a 20-foot gravel driveway.
The site wouldn’t emit light, noise, odors, pollution or other emissions, and would comply with township ordinances on operations, fire and explosion hazards, noise, lighting and glare, he said in the application. It would include native plants, have a stormwater management and decommissioning plan in place, and interconnection approval with PPL.
The township’s planning commission approved the project in May with conditions that there be glare control during construction and a decommissioning bond with the township, and that the township see a sample host agreement. The supervisors also approved the plans with conditions.
The project is the second that Pivot Energy has proposed in Lackawanna County this year. The solar company also sought conditional use in Ransom Twp. to build 6,550 solar modules on 18 acres of a nearly 300-acre parcel at Ransom and Lower Narrows roads. Supervisors denied the request in June and the company appealed the decision in June. The appeal remains ongoing.
The farm is the latest to be proposed in Scott Twp. Officials approved plans in 2023 submitted by Massachusetts-based ECA Solar to install panels on Chapman Lake Road.