Some call it the new frontier.

Solar energy is a rapidly growing industry, and the state of North Carolina is one of the top states in the nation for solar capacity.

Beaufort County has a couple of its own solar farm sites, including Chocowinity Solar on Bragaw Lane owned by O2energies.

Chocowinity Solar was commissioned in December 2014, and last Tuesday officials from O2energies invited local officials to tour the facility with them.

Joel Olsen, founder of O2energies, said his company bought the 77-acre parcel of land about two years ago from John Franklin Hitt and has since turned it into a solar farm producing 10 million kilowatts of energy per year—enough to power about 750 houses.

The farm is a $15 million project and is expected to add about $3 million to the county tax base.

Olsen said one of the benefits is that most of the land has been left natural and permeable, meaning there is grass and plants as opposed to concrete. He said a local farmer maintains the land, and the company is exploring options of using some acreage for sweet potato farming and beekeeping.

“It’s generating more property tax revenue than if we had a lot of houses…That’s a good thing for the town and the county,” Olsen said. “(Solar farms) should help preserve farmland in North Carolina.”

Adam Foodman, chief operating officer for O2energies, said he thinks there are a lot of misconceptions about solar energy, including how much cost it incurs.

He said creating solar energy is not as expensive as one may think, and they sell the energy back to the utility companies for six and a half cents per watt, in comparison to the 10 cents per watt for which utility companies then resell it.

Olsen said he is mindful of the concerns from the community regarding noise and the look of such a solar energy farm.

O2energies struggled to convince the Town of Chocowinity to allow them a conditional-use zoning permit to build the farm in a residential area.

At a meeting last year, town commissioners Arlene Jones and M.L. Dunbar expressed concerns, not with the company, but rather with the proposed location, saying it was not the place for a solar farm. Some residents were also concerned about the possibility of other doors being opened to non-residential companies wanting to build on zoned residential land.

But Olsen said the nearest home is about two football fields away, and the fences have been lined with plants and trees to eventually hide the metal chain link.

“The only thing you can hear on this site is in about a 10-foot radius (of the inverter boxes),” he said. “From the air it looks like a pool of water.”

“We feel like it’s really a win-win,” Foodman said. “We hire local labor to work on it…We want there to be local impact.”