>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made on a few acres of farmland.

Or at least it used to be farmland.

Now it's becoming the home of a solar array.

Earlier this month on Connections, State Assemblywoman Andrea Bailey described exactly this scenario.

Prime New York State farmland going from crops to solar panels.

Bailey said it's putting New York State in potentially dangerous territory.

After all, she said, no farms, no food.

What she wants to see is solar panels moving to non-farm spaces, the roof of a parking garage, perhaps places like that somewhere that isn't agricultural space.

And I wondered what the local solar industry makes of that.

So today we're sitting down to discuss what's going on, where solar is going, where it's not, where it might go next.

And we're going to try to answer your questions as well.

You can email the show Connections at WXXI app.

Listeners might know the GreenSpark Solar is one of the biggest players in the state.

Maybe the biggest Kevin Schulte is the CEO of GreenSpark Solar.

You guys are pretty big now, aren't you?

>> We're getting there.

>> You're getting there.

I was asking Kevin before the program began who your biggest competitors are.

And you know, there's not a whole lot of other green sparks out there at this moment, right?

>> No, we're the largest in New York state.

Largest solar solar contractor in New York state.

And we installed the most community scale solar in the country of of all the contractors last year.

>> Well, I know you had a chance to listen to some of what the assemblywoman said.

I want to remind our listeners some of what she said, and let's listen.

This first clip from Assemblywoman Andrea Bailey.

She's talking about the pressure on farmers to turn their land into solar arrays.

Let's listen.

>> We have many individuals, and I'm not one to tell someone what to do with their own property.

But when you are, if you rent out your farmland and you might be able to get 100 200 on the top end to rent out your farmland for someone to farm it, versus 800 to $1000 per acre to put up a solar field.

What are you doing?

You're probably looking.

If you're looking from a long term standpoint, in what are you going to do, what's best for your family?

And we're seeing our agriculture land being taken up by solar projects left and right.

We have prime farmland that we're losing for that.

What's that going to ultimately end up doing?

We're going to have, you know, no farm, no food.

Is is one of the comments that one of my colleagues says all the time.

And it is very true.

>> All right.

And I want to listen to the second clip we have of Andrea Bailey, Assemblywoman Bailey talking about in her view, the people who want solar the most in this state don't have to deal, in her words, with the large arrays in their neighborhoods.

She says most of the solar is going to rural areas where a lot of people don't want it.

>> We have to talk about what is ultimately really happening when these large scale projects are coming into an area, the problem is they're not being put down where where many of the folks who are advocating for this reside, it's happening in my district.

It's happening in the 1/33 district, to a large degree, and it's happening in rural upstate New York.

>> So it's a location question.

>> I would say I asked this on on the floor.

I watched, you know, a talk show.

They had just moved into a new building down in New York City.

They were up on a fake green grass rooftop area.

That would have been a great place to put some solar panels.

You know, I did hear during the budget hearings that they're looking to put solar panels.

I think it was on JFK parking garage.

That's a good use of where we could utilize solar panels, putting it on prime farmland.

Over 3000 acres of farmland.

To me, that is not a good use of that agricultural space.

>> All right.

So there's a lot there.

Kevin Schulte where do you want to start?

>> I, I want to start with, like, a really nuanced thing.

And the nuance is this use of the term prime farmland is actually a really technical term.

And there are now 40 year old maps that reside both with the USGS.

So the United States Geographic Service and in New York State that have not been updated since the 80s, that describe where there is prime farmland versus non prime farmland.

And this means we have rich soils capable of growing crops.

Well, as any person that has their own garden knows, soil needs to be turned over from time to time.

What was prime 40 years ago is not necessarily prime today.

Of a local example out in like Wolcott, New York where the farmer when we when we talk to a farmer, we always ask the question, where is your least productive ag land?

And then our analysis starts there and says, okay, his least their least productive land is over there.

Let's see if we can make an economically viable project on that part of the property.

In the case of Allen Youngman, out in, in in Wolcott, what happened was what the state defined as prime farmland was actually covered in water, a wetland, and he could grow nothing on it.

But we had to move to the top of the hill, which was in order to avoid prime farmland.

We had to move to the top of the hill where he was growing healthy crop.

At the time.

And and that's all because of we could have.

We would have been happy to work at the bottom of the hill in the water.

You know, we could have retained the water and done all the things necessary.

But these prime farmland maps are old, so we have to be careful about use of that term to start.

Number two, I think.

>> You need opportunities.

I was mentioning before the show that we have 50 years of bad trade policy in this country, exacerbated dramatically by bad trade policy during the current administration, which is extremely negatively affecting farmers.

Greenspark currently spends no money reaching out to farmers to say, can I put solar on your land?

But we sure do get a call almost every day from a farmer saying, help me save my farm.

I need more revenue.

Solar pays typically 4 to 6 times what the most lucrative crop production pays on its on their land.

So the fundamental economics of farming in New York state.

I mean, look outside at the weather, right?

Not great at the moment.

And so farmers are looking for opportunity, right?

We we present an opportunity for them to make money on their land.

The other opportunities are often cluster developments or strip malls or other real estate transactions.

Right.

Where one where that third, there has been tremendous advancement in the concept of agrivoltaics.

So in all of the projects that we maintain in New York State, we herd sheep on them to keep the grass low.

So we are still using the land as a productive agriculture space, even if it's less productive than it would have been as pure crop space or pure livestock space.

So there are all kinds of good things going on to address the concerns of the Assemblywoman.

>> Agrivoltaic is a hybrid of sorts.

>> It is a hybrid of sorts.

There's there's there's maybe a half a dozen.

Well, there's probably many dozen approaches.

There's a half a dozen functioning approaches.

Sometimes folks are putting solar panels up much higher.

So livestock can still graze underneath it.

Or shade friendly crops can be grown underneath it.

sometimes it's grazing like we do.

Sometimes it's planting pollinator grasses there.

There's just a number of things that can be done to keep the land productive from an ag perspective, and also harvest the sunlight.

>> Okay.

When the Assemblywoman says no farms, no food, that's quite a dark picture of where we might be going.

>> I don't I don't think we get a lot of food from New York State now.

Like we get some.

But I mean, if you go to the grocery store, there's a small section of New York stuff and a large section of stuff from all over South America, all over California and all these other places.

And so I, I don't I don't think solar is going to solve 50 years of bad trade policy that make it cheaper to get a crop from China imported to the United States and sold to a grocery store.

Right.

That's policy has to be effectuated somewhere else.

Also, the amount of land needed to power the state of New York is de minimis in comparison to the total amount of land opportunity that we have.

Lastly, I'll.

>> Just say, I want you to put that another way.

I want to make sure we understand what you're saying there.

>> I don't know the number, but.

>> I think what I'm hearing you.

>> Say, less than 10% of New York State's land is covered in solar, and it's way less.

It's probably less than 5% even.

You know, would be needed to power the entire state.

>> That's why I think.

>> Including the city and the island with solar.

So it's a it's a de minimis amount that doesn't include the opportunity to put rooftops and carports and all of the things that the Assemblywoman and I rightly agree on as great spaces also for solar.

>> Okay.

So the idea that no farms, no food, we're headed for a future where there's almost no farming left in the state because everything became solar is, you think, a fantasy.

>> Yeah, I think it's.

What's that catastrophic thinking or something like that?

>> Catastrophizing.

>> Catastrophizing.

I, I think that that question's not being asked of the farmers.

That question is being asked of the the people that we see as opponents of solar farms.

And and I remind you, Greenspark sits in a space of community and distributed solar, which has built $16 billion worth of solar in the state of the in the state of New York.

We haven't built all that.

The industry has built $16 billion worth of solar, 100% through local permitting.

Okay.

So the the larger solar farms that are being proposed now and discussed, mostly discussed when Assemblywoman Bailey was in those are newer.

They represent less than one tenth of all the solar in New York right now.

And I think we're right to ask the questions about what is the appropriate development of them, but not in a binary way of, we can do this or we can't do this.

What's the right way to do this?

And I think it's very fair to ask those questions.

>> What do you make of her contention that the people who really want solar are probably the type of people living in the south wedge of Rochester, you know, living in Winton Village and feeling good about the future of more solar.

But they don't they don't have to live near solar arrays.

And she says in her district, which is very rural, a lot of the people don't want these solar arrays.

>> I have a bunch of Livingston County employees.

Just for the record.

and so, like, I understand that we understand the district.

Those people are calling us to put solar on their property.

>> Not forcing it.

>> On them.

We're not we do not spend marketing dollars in Livingston County, but the folks of Livingston County, particularly the farmers, will call us and say, is it my property?

An opportunity?

So I don't know what I would say other than we have to ask the farmers.

We can't ask right?

When we see opposition to our projects, it is not from the farmers, it is from people that own property across the street from the farm.

Often that simply don't want their view impacted by a solar farm.

I'm not.

I'm not so sure that perspective is fair within the context of someone can do what they want with the property they purchased.

>> Maybe someone.

Again, I say this a lot when we talk about this.

Maybe someone can explain to me why they don't like the.

I think they look pretty good.

I esthetically, I don't mind them at all.

I don't really understand.

>> Is it totally false?

The assemblywoman who?

My state policy director, Mary, is.

We've reached out to have a meeting and let's talk real policy about this stuff.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I'm happy to engage in that dialog, but I, I think we're creating this false dichotomy.

Where is the energy coming from in New York State right now, like in Wayne County?

Nuclear power plant is right across the street from three solar farms, right?

All of the energy is coming from rural right.

AES has a large coal and natural gas power plant just northwest of the city, right.

There is a very minimal amount of electricity production that comes from the inner cities of upstate New York.

Now it's all been put in rural areas, right?

Whether that's solar, whether that's gas generation, nuclear power plants, so on and so forth, whatever it's coming from, it's not happening.

Like the only power in downtown Rochester right now is really our hydro dams, right?

If you look around the city, there's 4 or 5 smokestacks left.

None of them are operating.

Right.

You've got Beebe Station.

You got the one down by the Costco.

You've got some up at the old Kodak.

area, some over at the Xerox.

They're not functioning.

They're all defunct.

Right.

Primarily because they were coal, which is just simply the well, other than nuclear is the most expensive form of electricity generation available.

>> Okay.

A couple other things.

and I already have some questions from listeners for Kevin Schulte, CEO, CEO of GreenSpark Solar.

We're going to go in a lot of different directions this hour, and we can take more questions at Connections at WXXI.

When the Assemblywoman says this parking garage is perfect, the roof of this parking garage is perfect for solar or you know, this other industrial site has a big rooftop that could be solar, that every time you put one on a farm, we should pause and say, nope, we're not going to put it on this farm until we cover every rooftop possible.

She's just saying, let's find alternative sites here first.

Again, I think what you're going to say is then you got to talk to the farmers who are begging you to come by and visit.

>> No.

>> And then what's the answer?

>> The fierce urgency of now.

We don't have.

Listen, I started my career because I believe that the earth is baking.

We should do something about it.

The reality of solar is simply this.

It is the most affordable, quickest to deploy form of electricity that we have available to us.

And we have dramatically and rapidly rising consumption of electricity in New York State and broadly in the United States.

We have to get in front of it.

And people want to say, oh, let's frack for gas.

How long does it take to get into the ground, find the gas, get the gas out, build the plant 7 to 10 years nuclear 15.

This is just the practical reality.

>> Seems like the extreme end of the scale.

>> It costs.

It takes seven years.

Right now, if you call GE and said, make me a gas generator, seven years is the lead time on the generator.

I'm not making it up.

This is the reality of where we're at.

It takes time.

Data centers don't take seven years to build.

They go much quicker.

They're drawing the power in.

So we have to keep up with generation.

You're seeing electricity spikes in price across.

We are literally paying twice what we paid one year ago for an electron.

Why?

We're paying more because the South is using natural gas.

Our energy is driven by pricing, is driven by natural gas, and that has spiked.

But the reason you're paying more is because all of the buyers on the open market are including the insurance that it would take, in case you have to turn on a dirty old coal peaking plant.

They're including that in your price for electricity, just in case there's not enough electricity available on the grid.

Then they'll fire that up and they'll buy it.

And so we are two times 12 month, year on year from January of 2025 to January 2026.

The cost of electricity in Argentina has doubled.

That's a supply and demand issue.

Part of that supply and demand issue is because the South is using more gas than it typically would.

Part of that is because we're not deploying solar and storage, which are our best tools fast enough.

>> Okay.

And by the way, we've talked recently on this program about our genie's text messages.

They've been sending out like, sorry about your next bill might shock you, you know?

And so I think people are absorbing that cost, especially in this really tough winter right now.

So okay, so I take your point on where we've gone in a year.

I think everybody's seeing that.

Yeah.

Separate though is the question of why an acre of for solar is.

The assemblywoman said 800 to 1000 sounds sound about right.

>> At the utility scale.

That's about right.

Okay.

And the community scale, it's more.

>> Okay up to 1500, something like that.

Yep.

Yeah.

So 800, 1000 $1,500 versus if you're renting it or using it for farmland, 200 bucks.

>> Five hundredths like organic apples.

Okay.

So you know, like which is pretty, you know, not a huge portion of farmland, but like, the most lucrative crops, 500, 600 an acre.

>> Okay.

They can't touch solar.

What you are implying is if we want that to change, we need to undo decades of trade policy that you can't fix, that you can't change.

But do you do you feel.

>> I wish I could.

>> Okay, well, there's a lot of things I know you wish you could change.

Do you feel that that there is something broken?

Because if I own a farm or I own a, quote, unquote, prime farmland, I'd make more money letting you come in and put a solar array as opposed to growing crops and selling them.

Is there something broken about that?

>> Well, I would I would say there's something new about that which feels broken, but the reality is we need energy and we need food.

Yeah, we we we probably have and I don't know the stats on this, so, so but we probably have as many people that are food insecure as they are energy insecure at this moment in this country.

And that's a scary, scary thought.

So we need both.

And I mean, I have a lot of theories on why that's the case, that I'm not sure I'm an expert to sort of speak through, but the reality is the dynamics of what we use our land for change.

And that change is often painful to people, often presents opportunities to people.

And and we just have to be open to the things we need to solve other societal problems climate, food insecurity.

Right.

energy insecurity, which all exist out there and are really problems right now.

>> Okay, before I get one more sound clip in one other question for you, because I want to make sure we understand when you when you, you use the term agrivoltaic, which is new to me, and I'm sure we'll see more of it.

How many different Agrivoltaic projects do you have out there right now?

And then how do you because you guys are using sheep.

I think you said, how do you decide what kind of agrivoltaic you would use on a certain site?

>> So we're GreenSpark Solar most of the work we do is as a contractor.

So someone that wants to own a solar farm calls us up and we go build it for them.

About 25% of the work we do, we develop ourselves.

The asset owners now are encouraged through local permitting, through state incentive to do agrivoltaics in many cases.

And so it's just often the opportunity of that solar farm owner to take a look at whether those incentives, what those incentives will drive or what local permitting will ask for when they go, go to decide how they're going to maintain the vegetation on a solar farm, the primary agrivoltaic on solar farms right now in New York State is, is vegetation management, right?

So it is planting crops in and around the solar panels that are pollinator friendly.

As a, for instance, or that are going to be consumed by sheep.

And so then, you know, you can herd your sheep.

There are newer technologies that are coming out like I spoke about.

We have a project on the Finger Lakes where we're working on 11 foot posts.

So the cow, the cattle on that farm can just graze right underneath, partially shaded.

In the summertime, covered from snow and other things in the wintertime.

But we'll fully grow grasses underneath it.

That's a smaller project that we're sort of testing out to see if we could do this at more scale.

So there's all kinds of things, and those decisions are dynamic and economically driven in nature, but they're also being incentivized by New York State to protect farmland to the extent possible.

>> And I want to ask you a little bit about what you might say to an Assembly member who is suspicious of all this solar development, because it was years ago on this program that you you brought a bit of a heterodox view on how we talk about the economy, how we talk about why we should be moving toward cleaner energies, the way we talk to people who might have very strident views about climate.

You know, someday we'll revisit that conversation.

But you haven't you have not been afraid to be heterodox thinker in the past.

So I'm curious to know what you might say to someone like Assemblywoman Andrea Bailey, who, you know, was pretty tough on solar when she was on this program.

>> She was tough on utility scale solar.

And as I said, I think utility scale solar as an industry needs to grow into the opportunity.

And that means meeting the moment of meeting with Assemblywoman Bailey and having the right conversations about how it impacts her community and her constituents.

But the $16 billion community and distributed solar industry in the state of New York is saving people money right now.

And the report I sent you, you may or may not have read.

>> I've read.

>> It that.

>> Says I got it.

>> That says, if, if, if we meet the policy goals in our segment of the industry alone, we save New York ratepayers $1 billion on an annual basis, not including the several hundred million more that's saved by those that directly adopt solar technology.

>> So 947 million.

>> Sorry, you're not going to give me the round up.

>> I just wanted to know I wanted you to know that I studied.

>> And for what it's worth, upstate more than downstate, okay?

Because it's where it's where the bulk of it will end up being located.

>> Okay.

>> so I my my point is, when I came on your show five years ago and said, we need to start talking about the economics and not the climate, I was right, I'm not trying to say I told you so, but I was, and the proof is now in the market, and the proof is now in the opportunity.

And so this report that I sent you does not include anything that happens on the utility scale side of the industry.

That's just rooftop adoption at at homes and at businesses, carports, community solar farms, things of this nature that are much smaller, locally permitted.

>> All right.

Let's listen to one more clip from that program.

Now, this is not with Assembly member Andrea Bailey.

This was one of the callers later in the program, Robert and Fairport.

And I thought the questions and the ideas he was bringing up, I thought would be appropriate to have Kevin Schulte listen to part of what Robert was talking about was he says clouds make solar a waste in our region.

And he says the panels themselves deteriorate quickly.

Let's listen.

>> The solar panels.

I just fail to see the common sense in putting a solar panel farm up in one of the cloudiest places in the entire country.

But, you know, driving to Bristol Mountain, you see a new one between Victor and Bloomfield.

And it's you got a you got a farm field that's taken over with these ridiculous things.

Is there any room in the state to create legislation that requires companies putting these in to create a sinking fund, so that once these things are technologically obsolete, which is just a few years down the road, that they can be removed.

>> Okay, Kevin Schulte, let's start with the cloud part.

The Cloudiest region in the country.

He doesn't see the logic in solar.

>> I believe that I would just say it is not lost on my self or the 150 people that work with me that we have winter in New York.

>> Did you know that it gets cloudy.

>> It is not lost on the $16 billion of investment in the state that we have winter in clouds in New York, all of that.

I have a whole section of desks in my office with these really smart folks that estimate the total cloud coverage and how much insulation hits every single panel on every single solar farm to predict the outcome of the investment of someone that wants to own it.

It is a very standard 6 to 8% return on investment for all of these institutional investors.

Infrastructure funds that invest in solar farms, and they are making that money over and over again and calling us to build them more.

>> Even with the clouds.

>> Even with the clouds.

>> I will say this at this point in your career with Greensburg, had you not considered the cloud cover, I'd be worried about your business future.

>> Well, well, the.

>> Reality is I wouldn't have been asked to do it again, right?

If I was like, the solar panels are going to make you electricity even when they're covered in, you know, two feet of snow.

And I told my customers that, do you think they're going to call me back and say, build me another one?

Like they're just not like we're very honest with ourselves about what the amount of sun is.

And the reality is there are far colder and further north places than Rochester, New York that are benefiting from solar.

>> Now, the second part of his call was about the deterioration, which he says happens in just a few years.

>> There is the there's not a solar panel that Greenspark has ever installed that has less than a 25 year warranty for production and ten years for the structure of the solar panel.

And I could ask my own people, but I would think that I could count on two hands or less.

the number of times where we have seen structural deficiency within ten years of and had to call the manufacturer and have them replace solar panels.

>> So where's this idea coming from?

>> I think it's coming from folks that don't want this to be successful for whatever reason or whatever.

whatever article they read, I think there is people that, like in any industry, will go out and choose low, really low cost options for something they buy that aren't going to last as long.

I think the same as if I go buy the cheapest plastic shovel at Walmart, or the best shovel at another store, and maybe the best shovel lasts longer than the cheapest shovel.

Like you have that dynamic in any industry.

But you know the the product that Greenspark has installed and writ large, the product that the industry has installed the people investing in are making money and coming back for more.

>> Maybe.

Related to that, let me read an email from Julie.

Julie says, I grew up and I live in Livingston County, and though I'm a villager, I have friends who were or are farmers.

As I drive around the county, I experience some solar arrays that are hidden behind berms planted with trees or bushes, but most of them are painfully evident as now ugly remnants of once fertile fields.

Here are her questions, she says.

Number one, why are some fields thoughtfully hidden, but not all?

Number two farmer friends have told me that the panels have a relatively short life span.

15 years is the most quoted number, and the least of the land has a similar time span.

What happens after the failure of the panels or the expiration of the lease?

And number three, farm friends also tell me that the panels are noxious waste when they are past their useful life, and they contaminate the land, so the land becomes no longer useful for planting.

Who is responsible for clearing the land if and when the solar field expires, and who is responsible for returning the land to its former state.

>> We are.

So we have to put up either cash or bonds to every town we work in anymore to decommission a solar farm.

Now, I will tell you.

>> That's part of your contract.

>> As part of the town permitting process, almost universally in New York State.

So there's a lot in that decommissioning being one.

So we take the financial liability of decommissioning a solar farm.

we give a quote as a contractor for what would it cost to remove that solar farm?

That quote goes to the town.

The town chooses whether they want to have a cash or bond.

it's I don't think I think it's completely ridiculous.

>> Why is that?

>> Because when you go build a barn behind your farm, that's eventually going to dilapidate and fall down.

Are you asked to put a decommissioning bond in place, or do you just let that barn fall down?

>> Well, okay, I don't disagree with the idea of that point, except if it's true.

And this is where I want to know if this is true.

Julie says, my farm friends tell me the panels are noxious waste when they are past their useful life, and they contaminate the land, so it is no longer useful for farming.

True or false?

>> Glass, plastic, copper.

Are we talking about noxious waste?

There's only.

>> This is not my expertise.

You tell me.

>> There is no noxious waste in solar panels.

They are like 99% recyclable materials, right?

There are no noxious.

There's no like everybody thinks.

There's like rare earth materials and all that in the solar panel.

No, that's there are rare earth materials in the lithium.

Same lithium that's in your cell phone in if you're doing battery energy storage.

But there is no noxious waste associated with solar panels, copper, steel, glass.

>> So this part is not true.

>> It's just not true.

>> And you can convert the land back to farming usage if.

>> You have to rip the steel out of the ground, concrete out of the ground, and return it to soil.

>> And you've seen people do it.

>> No, I haven't.

>> You haven't seen people turn it back into farm.

>> No, the the industry has been mature in New York State for about seven years.

>> So you're saying.

>> The fleet functionality is, like ridiculously high?

Over 95% operating efficiency across New York State.

So it's just a false narrative.

Okay, that I don't I don't know who made it up and who got that perspective out there.

I don't.

>> Do you hear that a lot?

>> For sure.

I don't want to pretend that I know where it came from, but.

>> But that's why I wanted to ask.

Because this email and Julie, by the way, goes on.

She says I'm supportive of solar and wind power, and I understand the financial plight of small farmers.

So she says, why take good, fertile land and ruin it?

>> You're not.

>> You're saying you're not?

>> No.

>> Okay.

And the reason that we don't have big case studies of solar arrays turning back into farmland is it's so young and the solar lasts long enough that we just generally don't have a lot of cases of that.

>> Yeah, but.

>> We could we could in the future.

>> We started our solar business in 2011, 2012.

So I have 14 year, 15 year old solar modules that have shown functionally no degradation outside of warranty and are still operating and and doing well out in the market.

>> In the future, though, we could potentially see farms on spaces that used to be solar arrays.

>> We could see farms on.

Absolutely.

>> Okay.

And finally.

>> And I would suggest that the solar itself is likely far more environmentally friendly than the fertilizers that we're putting on the food crops.

And, and, and you can see that in the runoff, if you looked at the runoff from a typical agricultural operation versus the runoff from a solar farm.

>> I don't know, man.

Even RFK Jr.

just endorsed glyphosate.

He says the president's good with that.

>> I'm going to leave that out there for you to talk about with somebody else.

>> Yeah, I, I figured you would.

The last thing though that she said was what about the arrays?

Some are hidden behind trees and bushes.

Some are not.

>> Yeah, that's a local permitting requirement.

I mean, we I would love to know how many millions of dollars we spend building berms and planting trees.

I think this is a there's there's two paths to this.

One is you have feedback from a town that says we would not like to see it.

And so, you see, can I still work here and economically do the plantings and build the berms, or there are town codes that require what they call vegetative screens which are often, you know, 6 to 8 foot trees planted all the way around a solar farm so that any, any viewsheds are covered.

viewsheds are also almost always very acute, meaning like you're very close to a solar farm, if you can see it.

And if you back up like it's much harder to do, particularly in the flatlands, but also in some of the more hilly terrain of New York.

>> After we take this only break right back to your phone calls and emails.

And there's a lot there for Kevin Schulte, the CEO of GreenSpark Solar.

If you want to call the program, it's 8442958442958255.

Email the program Connections at wxxi.org if you're watching on YouTube, join the chat there.

We'll come right back to your feedback.

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But what does that look like at a time when there's so much disruption in various job industries and various places of work that might not be around in the future, what does RYP doing to make sure they can stay stable, and what are they celebrating this week?

We're going to talk about it next hour.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Let me read an email from Charles Charles Charles says.

Obviously there was an inspection of my roof before my panels were installed by the now bankrupt my son power, but it would be helpful to know how a roof repair or replacement is done after solar panels are on your roof, if necessary, and you might want to touch on what happens if a solar company goes bankrupt as well.

>> so a lot of small solar companies have gone bankrupt over the years.

And I don't mean to pitch anyone, but we have an operation and maintenance division that takes care of a lot of solar projects that were installed by companies that were bankrupt.

And this is the challenge in industries is, you know, can you get your business to a scale to make a meaningful amount of revenue in order to, to survive?

all of the things that happen to a business over its life cycle.

And so I applaud the people that tried and failed for the most part, but ultimately, we're here to to clean up if you need help with a solar project, please give us a call and we'll see what we can do to get you fixed.

In terms of the roof in a residential space, we do a roof inspection.

and we offer the cost of what we call a Riri, which is a removal and reinstall.

I've had it done on my own house.

where we take the modules down, we take the attachments to the roof out.

we have the roof taken off.

Then we put our attachments in before the new roof goes on so that the all the most appropriate sealing and all of that can happen in a residential setting.

And then in a commercial setting as a, for instance, we just did a project at the food at Foodlink here in Rochester, which is a great project we're saving, you know, them 10% on their electric bills in order to bring more food to to those that are food insecure here in Rochester.

Really great project.

One of the things we did with them was we put, warranty reserve in place for the cost of a removal and reinstall so that they keep making their 10% savings.

And that was accounted for at the beginning of the project.

So we put that money aside in order that down the line, they had a they had a fully warranted roof.

We work with the roofing contractor to get an annual inspection to maintain the the roof warranty.

But when that runs out in 20 years, we then have this fund set aside in order to remove and reinstall if the roof needs to be replaced in 20 years.

Secondarily, I'll just say solar panels take a whole lot of wear and tear off of a roof because they cover significant portions of the roof.

and so sometimes they can actually extend the length of the roof.

>> you got a lot of phone calls and emails.

We're going to go fast here.

You ready?

Okay.

Michael, next on the phone, I think down in Trumansburg.

Go ahead.

Michael.

>> Oh.

Hi there.

I enjoy your program.

Thanks.

I'm going to say this real quick.

I'm very much in favor of solar, but, you know, there seems to be a mercenary part to it.

Also at times, for example near me, 200 acres of forest was clear cut to put in a solar farm.

And right across the road you know, maybe just a quarter mile down 400 acres of field abandoned field was was untouched, you know, would that be the perfect place for solar farm?

Not for God's sakes.

Clear.

Cutting 200 acres of woods, you know, and when I talk to the owners why they did it, they just said, well we wanted to sell the land, and we were approached by this solar farm to if we'd be interested in selling it.

And so and I thought, you know.

>> So it's capitalism.

>> Yeah.

Well, the whole issue is that if, if a solar company was environmentally minded, they would say, you know, geez, we don't want to clearcut 200 acres of woods, you know, that wildlife are living in and and, you know, it gives off carbon and everything else.

we're going to try finding something else nearby that would be more friendly toward the environment.

>> Yep.

Yep.

I, I hear that idea.

so it's an interesting phone call.

Michael in Trumansburg listening on WEOS Finger Lakes Public Radio.

Thank you.

Michael.

go ahead.

Kevin Schulte.

>> So two things we do not.

>> That's not your project.

>> I'll explain exactly where it came from.

But I will be honest in saying that our first ever commercial solar project was a virgin mountaintop in western Massachusetts which we decided to clear.

The trees was on a ski resort on top of a ski resort, and the ski resort wanted the power.

And we decided to clear cut the trees and I would never do that again.

We we learned our lesson from that.

I think one, because the not necessarily the perfect use of land.

I mean, the carbon equation is in the favor of the solar panels.

Just for the record.

But the reality of what we found underneath there was made a very untenable and very difficult and, and and it just was clearly the wrong land choice.

And so as an at my core, an environmentalist, I said, this isn't the path forward.

Right.

And so we stopped that 2012 the last time we did it.

there are some businesses out there that are in this business of sort of very cyclical business.

Right.

So they have a real estate business that requires timber.

And so they're actually timbering, buying properties, timbering, the properties and then using them for solar.

So they're getting this full lifecycle value.

They think out of that property.

It's a business model.

It's not my business model.

and I understand the concerns around it.

you know, so, so, so I, I agree generally with the caller that you know, overgrown fields, you know, those are fair.

questions to ask.

I think it's a fair question to ask.

And I think I think it's absolutely right that at the core, the environmental question is right.

I think there's math that can be done around the equation of what's more productive from a carbon capture perspective.

But like ultimately, it's a very fair question.

And I think at our core, the environmental question always will ring true with, with most solar developers.

>> Michael.

Thank you.

an interesting Kevin Schulte talking about a project that you said you'd never do again.

John.

>> It's not the only one.

>> John and Lima.

Hey, John, go ahead.

>> Hey you know, when I hear about the debate between solar and food production, I have to throw in there the idea that about 60% of corn crop in the United States is used for ethanol.

So all that corn that's being grown is not being used for food.

So there's already a diversion from the use of land for food.

>> Kevin.

>> Yeah, I mean, I don't agree with the production of ethanol at all.

At all.

I mean, ethanol is a agribusiness is an agribusiness slash fossil fuel industry.

money grab in the Midwest that I completely disagree with and has no value on the environmental merits.

>> all right, John, thank you.

Francis writes in to say, Evan, you asked your guest earlier why not solar on rooftops?

He sidestepped your main question.

and he.

Could you ask him again why his company and other solar companies are not targeting the top levels of parking garages and ground level parking lots for the installation of more solar farms.

>> Yeah.

So?

So the top level of parking garages is a really challenging one because you have to build an often they are not structurally capable of holding the new steel and weight of what would be a solar farm above the top of it.

So sometimes you have to build this exoskeleton around the parking garage, which becomes demonstrably expensive to do.

>> Assuming there's space for.

>> It, assuming there's space for it.

But the answer to your question in general is we absolutely target the use of parking lots, rooftops.

used industrial space.

I think we have about a dozen brownfields or or landfills that we've put solar on around Western New York.

Those are I agree with those are the most opportune places to put solar.

I didn't I didn't intend to sidestep the question.

It's a significant portion of our business is doing rooftop solar.

Carports are expensive.

>> Okay.

>> And.

>> So not all rooftops are the same.

>> Not all rooftops are the same roof.

Rooftops are less productive because the pitch angle of the modules are less.

So they catch less sun than if they're standing up higher.

But carports.

Because if you think about it, to build a carport, I have to build the house, the whole steel structure to support the the panels up in the air.

And that's that's expensive to do in comparison to if the roof already exists and I can bolt the modules to it.

And they're capable and structurally capable of holding them.

>> I'm going to try to move.

Keep moving fast here, Steve in Rochester says my cousin owns his own solar company in Washington state, a very cloudy state, and they do a great business out in the Pacific Northwest.

Despite the clouds, his company covered the entire roof of the Seattle Ikea in solar panels, and Seattle is known for having more clouds than Rochester.

A Google Maps search for the store.

You can see how cool it looks.

I think solar is the future.

>> I agree.

>> Okay, Steven says large solar arrays in the genesis in Genesee River floodplain planned in rush and existing, I believe across the river in Livingston County.

Isn't this some of the richest, most prime farmland in the region?

Do you know anything about that?

>> I don't know specifically whether it's the richest and most prime ag land in the region.

I do know that there are solar plans built on floodplains.

Are risky business.

you know, and it costs a lot of money to build in them and it costs extra insurance and all that sort of stuff.

I, you know, I've, I've made the statement earlier on the program that, like, I don't think the maps that are out there truly define what is prime and not prime ag land.

And I think the state of New York should spend the money to redefine those and get into a program of doing that regularly, so that this becomes less of a debate.

Most good solar developers are not out there trying to take food, land and turn it into energy.

Land.

What we're what we're trying to do is create energy opportunity in New York state and and and this, this, this prime farmland conversation is askew because the data driving it is 40 plus years old.

>> Laura and Victor says, why shouldn't there be new zoning standards that require new commercial buildings and parking lots to have solar arrays?

There are acres and acres of potential.

There.

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, that's California, California's L.A.

like drove a lot of solar production and into the state by having certain local jurisdictions saying if you build a house, it has to at least be solar ready, meaning you have to use a two by six instead of a two by four in the roof.

And you have to make sure there's a south facing plane on the roof and things of that nature that just made the house ready to adopt solar.

And so stuff like, that's just smart.

I mean, it's just smart community development.

I love it.

you know, the builders don't love it, and that's okay.

Like that, that that's a job of my companies to work with the builders to start to understand the opportunity moving forward.

>> Morgan and Cayuga County says wetlands and open grasslands are important biodiversity and environmental stabilizers.

My question is how much study has been done by the solar industry towards the ground temperature increase and increase to fire risk to surrounding areas?

Where are the results of these studies, this industry talking about how much local food is available in our area is nonsense.

And Morgan wants data on ground temperature increase and increase to fire risk.

>> Yeah, there there are really like a de minimis amount of fires that have happened on solar farms in New York State.

So I don't I don't know where the data is, but I can tell you that because we built a lot of them and maintain a lot of them you know, I don't know the data on, on all of the food sources.

I know what is available to me as a human when I walk into Wegmans to buy grocery for me and my kids.

and, and, and, and in the summer, we have some New York options.

And in the winter we don't is the way it feels as just a person.

I don't have data to to deliver on that.

And, and I and I don't admit I don't I don't try to be an expert on it.

>> Okay.

But you're not aware of fires on in solar arrays?

>> No.

There.

there's some conversation around.

There was there's a couple of battery storage, battery energy storage fires.

There's some conversation around those.

And I agree, they have to be, you know, done well.

But you know, what we don't talk about is, you know, how many fires are there on traditional electrical infrastructure, transformers and things of that nature, which happen literally every single day in this area because, you know, ultimately, things that use electricity have a risk of fire.

And so we just have to be honest with ourselves about whether or not the solar production is different than the stuff that's already sitting at our buildings.

>> Let's try to do this in this last one in about a minute.

We're going to go really fast here.

So real quick here, multiple points from a different Steve says large scale solar can take as long as nuclear.

Yes or no.

>> It sure can.

Yeah.

It can take that long.

It it doesn't normally take more like 18 to 36 months versus ten years.

>> he says Agrivoltaics is not yet ready at scale.

>> I agree, I think I already said that.

>> Okay.

Says community solar and warehouse buildings are preferable to large scale solar.

>> I built a business for the last 25 years on that fact.

>> Okay, he says the distribution of solar in New York state is not equitable.

Rural disadvantaged areas are more heavily targeted.

>> Yeah, and they're making the lion's share of the revenue associated with them.

>> And he says there can be fas, fas, PEF encoding on some panels.

And and some wiring.

Older panels have other heavy metals.

>> There are some solar panels that use different chemistry.

They are not the most prevalent solar panels that are used in our industry.

>> Last 30s or so I know you've traveled a bit.

I know you've been to Puerto Rico.

What was it like watching the Super Bowl halftime show, watching Bad Bunny dancing on power lines as a way of riffing on grid problems?

I mean, what does that tell you about why, I wonder?

I'm sure you watched that.

>> my joy was mainly driven by watching my Puerto Rican girlfriend and the joy of her being able to celebrate her culture in such a way.

but I've been to Puerto Rico many times, and the reality of the grid problems down there and nationally are right to be elevated because I think it is not just the single biggest economic development problem in Rochester, but across the country.

>> Do you move to Rochester yet?

Did that happen?

>> We're downtown, right on Main Street.

>> You're downtown.

How's that?

How's that going?

>> Love it.

We love being downtown.

There's a new energy about our business and new energy about all the places we can have lunch and have happy hour.

And.

And we're loving being downtown Rochester.

>> And you're going to stay downtown.

>> We are.

We're looking for a this is a temporary home until next spring, and we're looking for our long term home.

We're working on our long term home as we speak.

>> Thanks for coming in.

>> Happy to be here.

>> I always appreciate the conversation with Kevin Schulte, the CEO of GreenSpark Solar.

And I promise listeners, phone calls, emails.

There's no way we can get through everything in an hour.

When Kevin is here.

There is so much interest in this.

That's why we're going to keep doing it.

I promise you that.

More Connections coming up.

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