Commissioners vote to allow residential solar panels in areas near the airport
Published 12:10 am Saturday, February 24, 2024
SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners voted during its meeting on Monday to change the county ordinances to allow solar panels to be placed near the airport.
The county ordinances had previously stated that no solar panels would be allowed in the circular and horizontal surfaces of the Mid-Carolina Regional Airport in an effort to prevent glare from affecting pilots. The surfaces are an oval-shaped area around the airport that extends out to 2.65 miles away in some areas.
The ordinance change was proposed by the company Top Tier Solar Solar Solutions, who had been working with a client to place solar panels on their roof when they ran into the ordinance issue, company representative Michael Webber said at a planning board meeting in January.
The ordinance change will not affect the rules surrounding any solar panel usages outside of roof-mounted, residential systems. Those systems will be required to be the lesser of 6,000 square feet or 10 percent of the lot size. The solar panels will also be required to be coated with an anti-reflective coating to minimize the glare.
Webber noted that all of the solar panels his company uses are covered with the anti-reflective coatings and that most newer panels have similar coatings on them.
Assistant Planning Director Shane Stewart, who handled the ordinance request, said that the very first thing planning staff did when they considered the request was ask for Airport Director Valerie Steele’s opinion. Stewart said that Steele indicated that the ordinance change would be acceptable so long as it was kept to only residential usages.
During the planning board meeting, Webber pointed to a review performed by the Federal Aviation Administration on the potential effects of solar panel systems on nearby airports. That review was aimed at solar panel systems that were placed on federal airports, but the Federal Register noted that it could also be applied to non-federal airports.
“Initially, FAA believed that solar energy systems could introduce a novel glint and glare effect to pilots on final approach. FAA has subsequently concluded that in most cases, the glint and glare from solar energy systems to pilots on final approach is similar to glint and glare pilots routinely experience from water bodies, glass-façade buildings, parking lots and similar features,” the review stated.
The rule disallowing solar panels inside the airport’s vicinity came after the Rowan County Board of Commissioners issued a moratorium on all ground-mounted solar energy systems larger than 6,000 square feet in 2019. After evaluating the county ordinances and land use plans for solar energy systems, the county issued four separate categories of systems.
The relevant category on Monday was roof-mounted systems, which only had the limitation that they could not be placed in the area of the airport, according to a report from county planning staff.
After the discussion, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve the ordinance amendment.