While no one spoke in favor of a moratorium on the issuance of permits for new solar farms in Halifax County, several spoke against it during a public hearing on the matter before Halifax County commissioners.
In the end, the board, with Commissioner Sammy Webb absent, approved the 120-day moratorium in an effort to give the county’s planning board and ultimately the county’s governing body time to review proposed amendments to the county’s current ordinance which was adopted in 2019.
Reginald Bynum Jr., the community outreach manager for the Center for Energy Education in Roanoke Rapids, said out of the more than 183,565 acres that are in agriculture in the county, 1 percent is designated for solar. “This highlights that utility scale solar projects can coexist with agricultural operations without significantly reducing food production.”
Bynum said solar farms serve as a temporary land use, in effect a placeholder that preserves and enriches the land which is decommissioned and restored to agriculture at the end of the lease.
In 2026, projections show a 3 percent designation for solar on agricultural lands, he said.
Solar helps to enhance soil health, Bynum told the board. Solar farms do not require frequent tilling to help maintain soil structure and prevent erosion. “Land usually left undisturbed for long periods allows the soil organisms and root systems to establish which contributes to soil regeneration. A solar farm gives the soil a rest period from agriculture activities like pesticides and further applications, helping the soil recover.”
He said solar panels create shaded areas that help retain moisture in the soil and promote cooler soil temperatures which can be conducive to microbial activity. “Transitioning a small percentage of agricultural land to solar offers economic benefits to landowners such as long-term lease income and environmental benefits such as reduced carbon emissions and enhanced soil health. This supports North Carolina’s state emissions goals to be carbon neutral by 2050 and would help achieve the state’s target by reducing carbon emissions from the power sector from 2005 levels by 2030.”
Jim Harris, director of land development for Genex Solar, addressed concerns that solar farms take away hunting land. “We’re not taking all the hunting land,” he said, referring to Bynum’s comments. “The thing I like to keep people in mind is I cannot take land by eminent domain. This is a landowner’s decision to put their land in solar. The same thing goes with hunting rights. Just because a group of hunters hunt that land, that landowner can change his mind, her mind at any point in time and hunt to another group or shut it down altogether.”
He said the same thing goes with agricultural uses. “I understand that people who are leasing farmland, yes it will affect them. It goes back to property rights. A landowner has a right to use their land for their family’s benefit. What this does is generate a lot of generational loss of land. I see it in eastern North Carolina, especially in Enfield, Scotland Neck, Halifax County, Nash County, Edgecombe County.”
What happens, Harris said, is that sometimes farming is lost when parents tell their children they need to get an education. “When they leave to get an education, they’ve got to have a job and unfortunately in Halifax County they wind up going to Raleigh-Durham. They might go to Petersburg or Richmond. They might go to Charlotte. What you’re seeing I’ve heard over and over and over is every landowner I’ve worked with is solar keeps their land in their family for 20 to 40 years because they know when they pass and their children live somewhere else the little amount of money they get from hunting leases and the little amount of money they get from crop leases, it may cover the taxes. So they’re going to sell the land. I’ve had landowners break down in tears after the fact that they saw them start construction.”
Harris said another reason he is opposed to the moratorium is that just in general “when you say moratorium and you’re using it for no other reason than to make some amendments to your ordinance, which I have no problems with your amendments — they look fine to me — it sends that message that Halifax County is opposed to solar because nobody is going to call and ask to say why did you do a moratorium, they’re just going to assume that they hate solar and you folks have been such proponents, a leader in the industry, a leader in the state, I just hate to see that connotation being attached to Halifax County as a result.”
Matthew Perry, of Pure Power Contractors, which is building a farm at Sand Pit Road and Old Highway 125 in the Scotland Neck area, said that during peak construction the project will be one to two years. The heavy construction will end at the beginning of June. “During that time we’ll either hire between 600 to 800 employees. “Those are individual companies that are going to be in and around Scotland Neck. They are going to be going to restaurants, gas stations, going to campgrounds and hotels. There’s a lot of local revenue that’s generated from this project.”
Perry said the project represents revenue for the county through taxes. “This project has been in the works for many years. We’ve already started construction and the bulk of it will be done mid-June.”
There are other construction groups in the area where Pure Power is working, he said. “We identified that DOT is doing some road improvements, there’s utility developments that have been ongoing. The construction going on in that area isn't just solar or Pure Power.”
Mozine Lowe, executive director of C4EE, said, “Solar energy is not a new industry. It has been around for some time. We realize there are many questions. We also realize there’s a lot of misinformation. We are committed to providing education programs to decision makers, programs for our students, and providing workforce opportunities.”
Lowe said Halifax County is recognized as a leader in the industry. “The center is recognized as a leader in eastern North Carolina.”
She asked for the board to make an adjustment to the ordinance rather than a moratorium. “I believe it sends a message that we’re not open to clean energy.”
Lisa Olliver, marketing and communications manager for C4EE, told the board, “The thing about Halifax County is it’s a pastoral area. We don’t want the creek of cement or asphalt. We would rather have the solar installations because it keeps the grass green. We can pull the solar installations out of the ground, shake it up a little bit and we can grow again.”