Vermont is known as the Green Mountain State for good reason — yes, the Green Mountains run through its center, but the state features lush forests from border to border, and naturalists flock to the area to watch foliage change colors each season. That dedication to protecting the uninterrupted view of greenery can sometimes make a Vermont solar installer’s job difficult, especially when a town wants to go 100% solar.
Aegis Renewable Energy (No. 275 on the 2025 Top Solar Contractors List) solved that puzzle this past year for the town of Colchester, bringing online four unconventionally sited projects. After working with the third-most-populated municipality in Vermont in 2018 on a 150-kW ground-mount project along a small stretch of Roosevelt Highway and another 150-kW ground-mount at a pumpkin patch, Aegis completed projects at a local cemetery and the town’s new recreation center in 2024. The town had a goal to install 720 kW, and Aegis made it happen.
Colchester’s new rec center supports 270 kW of solar, including a carport that spans the drive lane of the parking lot.
“They’ve been trying to get to 720 kW, because that is how much the town uses for their power, so they wanted to offset that,” said Sonia Behn, Aegis VP. “Every year, we try to find a new site to get them to reach this goal. And finally, this year, they’re making enough solar power to offset the town’s electrical needs.”
While siting the two 2018 projects was straightforward, finding room for that last 420 kW was not. Behn said Colchester lacks land that can support solar without either significant shading issues or requiring forest clearing. To avoid that, Aegis suggested rooftop and carport arrays for the under-construction rec center, along with another ground-mount on an unused parcel at the Fort Ethan Allen Cemetery.
“We’d been struggling to find a site that would be productive,” Behn said. “That’s why we brought up the carport idea. It’s a creative way to get them to the number they needed.”
The rec center — 20 years in the making — opened to the public in February 2025. The facility features an indoor track, basketball court, gym, a 120-kW rooftop array and a 150-kW carport that spans the parking lot.
Fencing and landscaping surround the 150-kW solar array at Fort Ethan Allen Cemetery.
Aegis’ design, permitting and project manager Aaron Lavallee said the rec center has a butterfly-style 5° inward-sloping roof that required a racking system that could be tilt at both 5° and 15°, giving the array a final 10° tilt. The company picked Sun Ballast, an Italian concrete racking with U.S. distribution.
“The Sun Ballast product was a price-competitive, all-in-one solution for us. The racking is the ballast, and it’s also designed to ground the array,” he said. “They have a U.S. distributor in New Hampshire, which greatly reduced production and shipping times, and as a bonus, it qualifies for domestic content.”
For the carport, Aegis used Terrasmart’s long-span canopy product with a few tweaks. The town wanted a minimum clearance of 14 ft under the drive lane to accommodate fire and other safety vehicles and snowplows.
“[Fourteen feet] was our starting point on the low end, and it reaches 18.5 ft on the high end,” Lavallee said. “We also had to span the entire paved area of 67 ft, which required some additional engineering to achieve.”
On the other side of town sits Fort Ethan Allen, a U.S. Army post established in 1894 and closed in 1944 that is now home to the Vermont National Guard and various businesses. The fort, named after Vermont founder Ethan Allen, supported a small cemetery to the southeast for military personnel. Half of the cemetery property was unused, making it a perfect spot for a 150-kW solar ground-mount.
An archeological investigation was completed at the site to ensure historical preservation. No issues were found, so Aegis completed a bifacial fixed-tilt project adjacent to a busy, four-lane road. Since it is a well-trafficked area, the town requested aesthetic improvements, and Aegis worked with local landscapers and fencing providers to obstruct the view of the solar project. The result is a beautifully landscaped electricity site next to a historic 130-year-old cemetery, all surrounded by the state’s promised green mountain environment.
Behn said it was a fun challenge to meet Colchester’s solar goal, with the final two projects bridging the old with the new.
“The rec center was a brand-new building,” she said. “And we took an old [military] gravesite and revived the land into something purposeful and useful.”
This story was featured exclusively in our 2025 Top Solar Contractors issue. See the issue and full list of top U.S. solar installers here.
