Less than four months after proposing the construction of a solar farm to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation, Solarflair Energy and Westboro 21 South Street Inc. are jut about finished building the Milk Street solar farm — a 240-kilowatt (KW) photovoltaic (PV) solar energy installation in Westboro Massachusetts.

A group of residents in the Westboro area led by business owner Bruce Forrestall, Westboro 21 South Street Inc. is the organization credited with helping make the project a reality. The plant is located near two main routes in the Westboro area — 9 and 135 — so the group needed to gain approval from the Massachusetts transportation division to go ahead with the project. That approval came after a public hearing in early September.

Forrestall was in many ways the brains behind the operation, having got the idea after installing solar panels atop his car wash in 2008. He noticed the payoffs immediately — clean energy and savings on utility bills — and decided to expand his rooftop solar system. So Forrestall got in contact with Solarflair — a solar installation firm based in Framingham, Mass. — to see what they could do. Three months later, Solarflair had helped Forrestall install a two acre, 860-panel system.

Following that success, Forrestall and Solarflair agreed to team up on the $2 million Milk Street Solar Farm, which is eligible for the federal government’s 1603 Treasury Grant. The grant will help pay for 30 percent of the project’s cost within 60 days of the farm’s completion. The Massachusetts renewable incentives program also allows the project to generate revenue via solar renewable energy credits (SCRECs).

According to a SolarFlair spokesperson, SREC revenue is substantial and key to making projects viable:

“Over the next 10 years, the SREC market projects to add between 30 cents and 60 cents to the value of each kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by solar. Such PV incentives are helping to reduce the payback time of installing the system. The system will generate over $5,000,000 in savings and revenue over its 30 year expected life.”

Forrestall will sell the energy from the solar farm to National Grid, one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the country.