At their regular meeting on May 19, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted on a request from the Fayetteville Public Works Commission (PWC) to rezone just under 45 acres of land east of Ramsey Street along Carvers Falls Road from planned neighborhood development to A1CZ which is agricultural district conditional zoning for a solar farm. 

PWC shared that the Carvers Fall solar farm represents approximately $9.5M investment in the  Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. The company shared that in addition to developing this site for renewable energy, the surrounding areas would benefit from the economic injection of over 100 jobs during the solar farm construction. 

The planned construction contractor and subcontractors are local to the area, as well. Delaying the project’s completion risks the ability of PWC to leverage federal tax credits that are up to 30% of construction costs.   

PWC currently has a solar farm (1MW) on site at the Butler Warner Generation Plant (BWGP) and one on Gillespie Street (2MW). PWC is working towards adding a solar farm at the Rockfish Creek Water Reclamation Facility (5MW) that is expected to be placed in-service in January of 2026. PWC is also planning to install an additional solar farm (4MW) at the BWGP by the end of the year.

A PWC team member shared that all of the company’s solar farms are being built on existing PWC property to save on costs and have access to existing infrastructure to tie the solar farms into the PWC power grid. As far as the timeline for construction, they shared that the typical PWC solar farm construction period is six-months.   

Delaying the project could prevent PWC from qualifying for federal tax credits up to 30% of construction costs. Every single PWC customer benefits from investments in solar farms as they add power to the local grid, which in turn lowers the amount of power required to be purchased from Duke Energy. Given this solar farm’s clean energy generation, PWC intended to use it to help meet NC Clean Energy and Efficiency Portfolio Standard requirements. Otherwise, PWC must buy clean energy credits to meet this State requirement 

Following Director of Planning and Zoning Rawls Howard’s presentation of the initial plan, Director of Engineering for Fayetteville PWC David Deschamps and Bradley Martin with Booth & Associates both spoke in favor of the solar farm, citing actions PWC has taken to ensure the construction of the solar farm would have no negative impact on the surrounding homes and land. 

PWC worked to do their due diligence to consider any potential pushback to the proposal. They did a sound study, a glare study, sent letters to neighbors of the site and planned to add shrubbery around the road to add a buffer between the solar farm and the road. However, these efforts did not sway the minds of some. 

Russ Bryan, owner of an adjacent property, expressed disapproval of the plan. He voiced concerns that the trees help with water run off and to clear this land to build this solar farm was not the right choice. 

“To clear-cut 45 acres of trees to power another 800 homes — maybe 1,000 if it’s sunny — it’s not a lot, right? And it’s a lot of trees that are gonna go down,” remarked Bryan at the meeting. 

Bryan also expressed concern about noise, despite PWC’s reassurance that it would not be an issue. 

Ultimately, the request for rezoning was rejected. 

The PWC team works tirelessly to deliver cost effective, reliable electric, water, and wastewater services to all of its customers. Specifically, this project (had it been approved by the Cumberland County Commissions), would mitigate future rate increases, add power generation diversity and bolster reliability for our over 83,000 electric customers. Following Monday’s meeting, PWC is evaluating its options relative to the Carver Falls solar farm and its location.