BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 20, 2023
A plethora of solar projects emerged from generous incentives granted by a 2019 Maine law, LD1711, geared toward meeting the state’s statutory clean energy target of 80 percent renewable energy by 2030. The law was revised in 2021 to cool demand. But cities and towns across Maine have pushed back on some of the incentives and moved to make developers more accountable for commercial projects, especially the spike in waste expected when the solar arrays are at the end of their usable life in 20 to 30 years. Maine has 7,317 solar installations with a total of 948 megawatts of power. By 2030, the U.S. could begin piling up millions of metric tons of waste from decommissioned solar models.