These are the three properties that Agilitas Energy has purchased over the last 14 months on College Highway and Nicholson Hill Road. The company has approached the town about building a solar field on those properties.
Reminder Publishing screenshot from Google Earth
SOUTHWICK — Town officials recently met with representatives of an energy company that has plans to build a solar field on property that fronts College Highway and Nicholson Hill Road.
“We had a pre-planning meeting with the company that included the Fire Department, Board of Health, Building Department and DPW,” said Town Planner Alvin Allen this week.
The company that met with the town officials is Agilitas Energy, which is a Wakefield-based company that bills itself as a “leading independent power producer with a mission to accelerate the energy transition” that develops, finances, builds, owns, and operates utility-scale solar, battery energy storage systems and hydropower nationally, according to its website.
Allen said that during the meeting, the company showed the officials preliminary drawings featuring the size of the field. They asked that those drawings be kept confidential because the plans had not yet been finalized.
He said the company could apply for the special permit needed to start construction in as little as six months or as long as two years, and that this would largely depend on when the state’s Department of Public Utilities signs off on the proposal.
Allen also said the company had submitted plans to Eversource, which has a substation at 105 College Hwy.
At the Planning Board’s June 16 meeting, Allen announced that a company had contacted him about its plans to build a solar field along Nicholson Hill Road and College Highway.
While he did not name the company, a search of the town’s geographic information system in that area identified three properties that Agilitas Energy purchased over the past 14 months.
On April 25, 2025, Agilitas Energy purchased a 2.7-acre parcel of land at 85 College Hwy. for $150,000.
On May 6, 2025, Agilitas Energy purchased an 18.8-acre parcel of land at 22 Nicholson Hill Road for $250,000, and on the same day, it purchased 3.89 acres of land at 99 College Hwy. for $40,000.
Allen confirmed Agilitas Energy was the company involved.
The properties are zoned residential.
Allen said state guidelines allow solar fields with small battery energy storage systems, also known as BESS, to be sited in areas zoned residential.
Those systems are excluded from construction in areas zoned agriculture/conservation.
In January 2026, Town Meeting approved a moratorium on the construction of new solar fields or the installation of BESS through May 2027.
As with all articles adopted during town meetings throughout the commonwealth, town-approved bylaws and charter amendments must be reviewed by the attorney general’s office to ensure they comply with state laws and the constitution.
The AG’s office found that the town’s moratorium bylaw lacked “articulated public health, safety, or welfare justification sufficient to justify the moratorium [even for a short amount of time],” according to the ruling — a finding Planning Board Chair Jessica Thornton said at the time was not unexpected.
“While disappointing, it was not unexpected,” she said, considering that a similar moratorium adopted by Town Meeting in Blandford was also disapproved.
She said if an application for a renewable energy system was made, the Planning Board would use the town’s current bylaw when making decisions about issuing a special permit. The board’s focus would be to try to keep them from being visible from roadways, especially at the southern end of town.
The location of the solar field is directly across the street from the Southwick Historical Society’s Moore House and the 10.7 acres that the Southwick Historical Society purchased last year to prevent it from being developed for industrial or commercial use.
The proposed location is 0.8 miles from the Connecticut state line, 0.77 miles from a solar field west of Goose Pond and 1.5 miles from the solar field on the southern side of Congamond Road.
An email and a message left with Agilitas Energy were not returned by press time.
