Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury Awarded “Green” Grant

The Amesbury News report that Amesbury’s Cider Hill Farm received a $30,000 energy efficient grant from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture to install a new photovoltaic (PV) system, which uses solar panels made of silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. The farm currently has a 10kw PV system that consists of 56 solar panels –– the new system will be 25.6kw which will have 128 panels. These two systems will be in addition to the three wind turbines churning out energy (two shown above).

Cider Hill Farm has also received grants to make their greenhouses more energy efficient using a special film and also to turn its greenhouses into high tunnel greenhouses which sit on the soil and do not use any heat.  The farm is also looking into micro hydro-energy (energy from moving water) and geothermal heat (using the heat of the earth).\

Read the entire Amesbury News article.