The Maryland Public Service Commission will hold a public hearing next week on a proposal to build a solar facility on farmland in Sykesville.

The online hearing is set for 7 p.m., Sept. 25, before Public Utility Law Judge Chuck McLean, for a proposal from Spring Valley Solar 1 LLC. The company intends to build a 2.25-megawatt solar farm on 14 acres of an 80-acre property at 1500 Fannie Dorsey Road in Sykesville.

The Public Service Commission is the state agency that regulates gas, electric, telephone, water and sewage disposal companies in Maryland. The commission also has much broader authority to supervise and regulate the activities of public service companies.

“In April 2024, Spring Valley Solar applied to the Maryland Public Service Commission for what is known as a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, which grants an applicant the authority to construct an energy generating station or high-voltage transmission line in Maryland,” a news release from the agency states. “According to the application, the solar facility, intended as part of Maryland’s community solar program, would be built on 14 acres of an 80-acre property located at 1500 Fannie Dorsey Road in Sykesville.”

The project is one of six applications requesting to build solar facilities on farmland in Hampstead, Sykesville and Westminster.

The applications are in various stages of the approval process. Since new solar-generating farms are prohibited on farmland, according to the county’s zoning code, each of the applicants has chosen to apply to the state instead.

The county’s prohibition of solar facilities on agricultural land remains in place but can be overridden by the state.

Carroll commissioners voted unanimously July 25 to ask the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission to examine and recommend changes to the county’s zoning code, including new stipulations to protect residential neighborhoods near agricultural land where a solar farm could be built.

Christopher Heyn, director of the county’s Department of Planning and Land Management, said Monday that none of the six solar projects currently going through the state’s application process has been submitted to the county for development review.

Next week’s hearing will include a presentation by the developer, followed by statements from the Power Plant Research Program of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel and the commission’s technical staff.

To sign up to speak during the public hearing, send an email referencing case number 9736 to psc.pulj@gmail.com by noon, Sept. 24. A recording of the hearing will be available on the Public Utility Law Judge Division’s YouTube channel at bit.ly/2X6wLiP.

Written comments can be sent through the commission’s online portal at www.psc.state.md.us/make-a-public-comment/ or by mail. Comments sent by regular mail should be addressed to: Jamie Bergin, Chief Clerk, Maryland Public Service Commission, William Donald Schaefer Tower, 6 St. Paul St., 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202. Include case number 9736.

The application is available for review at Carroll County Government, Planning and Land Management, 225 N. Centre St. in Westminster, the Sykesville Town Hall at 7547 Main St. in Sykesville, and the Eldersburg Public Library, 6400 W. Hemlock Drive in Sykesville.