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Eight previously approved solar farms are still being planned for in Cumberland County, although several have hit a snag. Over the last month, Cumberland officials updated the planning commission with those changes, reminding them in their Monday, June 16 meeting that two other would not move forward at all. 

Let’s go over the active ones first. One of the most recent approvals, Hecate Solar, is in a holding pattern of sorts. Now when we say Hecate Solar, we’re referring to the site located north of Columbia Road (Route 590) and east of Boston Hill Road (Route 605) in Cartersville. For those not familiar, this would be the northeastern part of Cumberland County. This also is not exactly a small project. It will cost roughly $175 million for a privately funded 150 megawatt solar farm which company officials estimate will generate power for 37,500 homes in Cumberland. All their permits have been approved, the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. They’re just waiting now on final site plan approval by the state to start construction. 

The same goes for Cumberland Solar and Boston Hill Solar, both projects in northern Cumberland owned by SunTribe. They’ve obtained the needed local authority to move forward, but now they’re applying for and waiting for state permits. 

An issue with too much dirt

Now two other solar projects in Cumberland are dealing with a unique issue. These are Rowlette Site I and Rowlette Site II. Site I is located at 1671 Cumberland Road, what would be a 3 megawatt small-scale facility. Out of 73 acres on the property, 20 will be used for the facility. When it’s finished, the project will include 8,343 solar panels and will be linked to Dominion Energy’s system, to deliver that solar energy to their grid. 

Site II is located just down from the first at 1650 Cumberland Road. This one is also going to be a 3 megawatt site. The company, Borrego Solar Systems, has found that one of the sites has too much dirt and the other doesn’t have enough. Currently, they’re trying to fix this without having to pay for dump trucks to travel back and forth between sites, transferring dirt. 

Some solar farms aren’t moving forward

This is just a reminder that two of the previously approved solar farms won’t be happening as planned. Planning commission members were notified first in their May meeting about this. 

This involves plans for Jamerson Solar I and II. Jamerson I, located north and east of 633 Vogel Road and Jamerson II, located near its sister site, were both approved by the Cumberland board of supervisors back in 2023. However, applications for both projects have since been withdrawn. 

“The developer reached out to us at the very end of December, early part of January saying they were not going to go forward with this,” said Cumberland Planner Stephany Johnson during that May 19 planning commission meeting. “The reason they gave is Dominion is requiring installation of fiber along these lines and that was not included in their budget. While they’ve been approved, they will not be going to construction.”

To be clear, they’re referring to plans where fiber optic wire, for high-speed internet, is buried in the ground and run alongside the lines connecting these solar projects to Dominion’s energy grid. To do that, however, you have to bring on a crew to locate the existing utility lines and dig. 

Final three set to start 

Meanwhile, there are some solar projects starting to move dirt in Cumberland. The final three approved projects, Plank Road Solar, Dunn Solar and Cox Family Solar, are either starting to actually begin construction or in the process of getting final paperwork done. Both Dunn and Cox are starting construction, Cox in the north and Dunn in the south end. Plank Road, meanwhile, is still waiting for their final site plan to get approved by the state. It appears that approval could come and work could start there before the end of summer.