Smart Solar

Western Massachusetts


Amherst, Shutesbury, Belchertown, and Pelham - residents working together to promote solar development in harmony with the environment and our communities

Connect to Smart Solar Amherst Here Connect to Smart Solar Shutesbury Here

Click Below to watch these educational forums we have held:

These video are of educational events that goes into the science and social science behind the importance of saving our forests.

This Presentation Succinctly Outlines the reasons why we are so profoundly frightened by the prospect of clear-cutting our forests for large-scale industrial solar.

This is a video made by Smart Solar Shutesbury that shows the local devastation caused by a much smaller solar array in Williamsburg than is proposed in Amherst, Shutesbury and Pelham. Not only were wetlands destroyed but the remediation has been significantly more destructive to the forests, wetlands and waterways that the initial flooding from the solar array.

This is a video made by Smart Solar Shutesbury that shows the local devastation caused by a much smaller solar array in Williamsburg than is proposed in Amherst, Shutesbury and Pelham. Not only were wetlands destroyed but the remediation has been significantly more destructive to the forests, wetlands and waterways that the initial flooding from the solar array.


Yard Signs are Here! email

smartsolarwm@gmail.com

to obtain one.

Smart Solar means:

  • Avoid large-scale deforestation and compromising viable agricultural fields

  • Locate solar arrays on “disturbed” land, rooftops, parking lots and developed land

  • Encourage distributed solar - many small sources like homes and small business for broad-based aggregated generation

  • Maximize forests and agriculture to their maximum carbon sequestration capabilities

  • Enable community sized and owned solar

  • Protect public and private water supplies from runoff from large industrial solar sites

  • Protect wildlife habitats, especially rare species to maintain vibrant ecosystems

  • Protect wetlands and local water sources

  • Create by-laws that enable development of solar installations that reflect and respect the values of the communities they are sited in