Solar power

The Riverhead Town Board will take up resolutions tomorrow to issue a determination of non significance and adopt a code to allow battery energy storage systems in five zoning districts in the town.

Riverhead Town's former landfill site on Youngs Avenue in Calverton is again being eyed for a possible solar energy facility.

The addition of Calverton Solar Center will bring the total approved solar energy production capacity in Calverton to 88 megawatts, enough to power more than 14,000 homes.

A 36 MW solar power generation facility on 290 acres of leased vacant land in Calverton is now under review by the a facility siting board of the State Department of Public Service, which has sole jurisdiction over the application. But the Town of Riverhead may reopen environmental review of a previously approved 20 MW facility proposed by the same company so that the impacts of both facilities may be examined.

“We are here to bid for the property. We are prepared to pay substantially more money for the property." The largest private solar power generation company in the U.S. says it wants to buy the town's 1,600-plus acres at the Calverton Enterprise Park to build a massive solar facility.

The electric utilities industry and their fossil-fuel backers are doing everything they can to stop the home solar energy insurgence because it cuts into their profits.