By Kate Selig Globe Staff,Updated March 1, 2026

Helen Sharron Pollard of Worthington has organized a coalition of about 400 people in Western Massachusetts to oppose certain large-scale solar farms and battery energy storage systems.Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe

WORTHINGTON — Helen Sharron Pollard and the couple down the road, Timothy Sena and Catherine Rude-Sena, had been neighborly for decades, stretching back to when Pollard picked potatoes on the Senas’ farm to earn money for college.

That is, until the Senas proposed last year to install over 6,000 solar panels on their land in Worthington, a sparsely populated town in the foothills of the Berkshires.

To the Senas, both in their 70s, the panels were a path to continue to afford farming and do some good for the environment. To Pollard, the batteries posed an existential threat, risking runaway fires and polluted water from toxins released during a blaze.

Amid the federal crackdown on climate action and attacks on offshore wind, Massachusetts officials are racing to expedite the buildout of clean energy. But fears that the energy storage systems attached to these panels, which store energy for when the sun isn’t shining, could burst into flames threatens to stall progress.

These concerns are especially strong in the Hilltowns, where proposals to install solar farms have surged. Even in places where many residents describe themselves as pro-solar environmentalists, some are fighting these projects tooth and nail because of the risk of battery fires, though rare, worrying that towns with volunteer fire departments and no municipal water supply would be especially vulnerable to a blaze.

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In addition to the Worthington project, solar farms have been proposed in nearby Blandford, Plainfield, and Southampton. Worthington and Blandford residents have voted to adopt “temporary moratoriums” on large-scale solar installations and battery energy storage systems, and similar measures have been discussed in nearby towns.

A lone pedestrian walked on Huntington Road in Worthington. Across the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, proposals to install solar farms have surged.Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe

“I’ve been pushing for solar since the ’70s,” said Michael DeChiara, chair of Shutesbury’s Energy and Climate Action Committee. “It’s a very weird thing for me to say we should not be doing solar, but it’s where the solar should go and how it should be deployed.”

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said the Blandford moratorium is under review, and it had not yet received a formal bylaw submission from Worthington, which passed its moratorium on Tuesday. The attorney general has previously disapproved solar and battery moratoriums elsewhere, determining that they ran afoul of a state law limiting the zoning restrictions that can be placed on solar energy.

The proposals have pit neighbor against neighbor. After learning about the Senas’ project, Pollard organized a meeting of townspeople at the golf club she owns. The gathering grew into a coalition of about 400 people from across Western Massachusetts who oppose “aggressive, opaque, or high-risk” solar panel and battery storage developments.

“People think if it’s clean energy, it must be a low risk, and nothing could be further from the truth,” Pollard said. She added, “This is a disaster waiting to happen.”

In Plainfield, Paige Cerulli, a freelance writer, has been hauling her belongings onto her porch, where she has been giving them away in preparation to move. Her neighbor proposed a 23-acre solar array close to her backyard horse pasture and riding ring. She had considered moving if the project was approved, fearful for the safety of herself and her four horses, but she said escalating tensions with her neighbor have pushed her to leave regardless.

“It’s pretty sad that it’s come to this,” she said.

Paige Cerulli of Plainfield, seen with her horse Encore, is opposed to a neighbor’s proposed solar farm. She was considering moving if the project was approved for the safety of herself and her four horses, but she said escalating tensions with her neighbor have pushed her to leave regardless.Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe

Battery energy storage systems, which can be paired with renewable energy or stand alone, can experience what is known as “thermal runaway,” where lithium-ion cells heat up uncontrollably beyond the battery’s limits. These blazes are difficult to extinguish, and experts say the best practice is to let the fire burn out and surround it with water to prevent it from spreading further. Though the failure rate of these battery systems has fallen significantly in recent years, a series of high-profile fires has drawn attention to the issue.

Last January, a major fire erupted at a battery storage facility in Moss Landing, Calif., that burned for several days. More than 1,000 people were evacuated. Researchers detected unusually high concentrations of heavy metal particles used in lithium-ion batteries on the soil of a nearby marsh after the fire, and residents reported sore throats, headaches, and other symptoms they worried were caused by the smoke.

State officials and solar industry representatives acknowledged that the fires are concerning but said they are very rare. The battery storage at Moss Landing, one of the largest in the world, was also considerably larger than any of the solar proposals in the Hilltowns.

“We have not found an instance where there has been measured contamination that was posing any threat to public health or safety or the environment,” said Michael Judge, the Massachusetts undersecretary of energy.

Judge added that the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services has not recorded a single fire among the approximately 6,000 batteries in the state that are connected to the grid, including some that have been operating for close to a decade.

BlueWave, a Boston-based company developing the Worthington project, reiterated similar findings in a submission to the town’s planning board. The company declined to comment on how much it is paying the Senas to lease their land, writing that the terms of these agreements are not public.

Related: Bill McKibben has been writing about climate change for decades. He thinks solar can save us.

But these assurances have not convinced everyone in Worthington. In addition to the batteries, residents have said they’re concerned about the impact the project could have on their property values, noise levels, and the local ecosystem.

Some of the permitting hurdles solar proposals have faced in the Hilltowns may soon be removed by state reforms intended to streamline how clean energy projects are approved. About a quarter of electricity generated in Massachusetts is from solar power, and the state needs to rapidly build out even more to meet its goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Right now, developers must navigate permitting processes that vary from town to town. Once appeals are exhausted at the municipal level, they go to the courts, where cases can drag on for years.

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A truck is seen in the snow in Plainfield, on Feb. 26.Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe

By October, cities and towns will need to offer a single permit application for energy projects that generate less than 25 megawatts, which would apply to the vast majority of solar proposals. Towns must make a decision on those applications within a year, and appeals would go to an independent state board.

“We can’t be spending 10 years to render a decision on every single project,” said Judge, the energy undersecretary.

Sean Gallagher, senior vice president of policy for the Solar Energy Industries Association, a national trade association, said the reforms are intended to not only address climate change, but also decrease energy prices.

“I took Econ 101,” he said, crossing his arms in the air to mimic a graph. “Demand is going up. Unless we add supply, prices are going to go up.”

In the meantime, the town of Worthington is duking out the future of the project at a series of planning board meetings that the chair, Bart Niswonger, has said will continue as long as there are legitimate health and safety questions to address.

Niswonger, a livestock farmer, is serving on the board as a volunteer, like many officials in small Western Massachusetts towns. Before the proposal, he said, the position took up a few hours a month. Now, it’s consuming tens of hours a week, and that’s not counting the emotional stress.

“It’s not an easy room to stand up in and say why you’re in favor of [the project],” Niswonger said.

On a recent weekday evening, more than 60 people packed into the elementary school in Worthington for a hearing, sloughing off winter jackets and stomping snow from their boots.

Niswonger listed ground rules into a microphone — no clapping, no booing, no personal attacks — that were violated with increasing frequency as the meeting dragged on.

The Senas did not speak. Most of the residents that did told the planning board, vehemently, that they did not want the project in their town.

For the Senas, the backlash has been frustrating. The couple farms hay and said that at their age, handling 50-pound bales is tough. They said the lease price they’d receive for putting in the solar farm would allow them to keep their land and continue farming under the panels, perhaps raising sheep or other animals.

Timothy Sena said they had been working with BlueWave for six years on this proposal, choosing it over other solar developers for its track record of success.

“I call it hysteria,” he said of the opposition. “They’ve got to get over it.”

Pollard was also present at the meeting. The longtime neighbors sat on opposite sides of the room and did not speak to each other.

Kate Selig can be reached at kate.selig@globe.com. Follow her on X @kate_selig.