Editor’s Note: This story first appeared in the Lexington Observer and is republished here with permission.
A five-megawatt solar canopy that will span about two miles may be built along the Route 2 median in Lexington next year as a part of a pilot program Gov. Maura Healey nicknamed the “Green Mile.”
Something similar exists in South Korea along a bicycle path, but this would be the first highway median solar project in the United States.
“Let it begin here,” John Iredale, founder of Solway Development, the Weymouth-based energy infrastructure development company that will develop the canopies, said to LexObserver, quoting Capt. John Parker’s famous Battle of Lexington speech.
Iredale and James McAuliffe, who is a partner at Solway, first presented their idea to build solar canopies along highway medians to former Gov. Charlie Baker. He was supportive of the concept, they said, but it was shelved when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Healey picked it back up when she was voted into office.
Iredale and McAuliffe’s idea sparked when they were working for a different solar company, building canopies over MBTA parking lots. Iredale realized highway medians are essentially unused land that sometimes exist close to cities.
“When you’re a solar developer and you’re looking for land to put solar on, you can go out to Western Massachusetts, but that doesn’t really serve the communities in the Greater Boston area,” McAuliffe noted. “We’re always looking for land that isn’t being used…it really was, ‘look at this land in the middle of Lexington, and all of these other communities, that is just ripe for solar.’”
Solway has been working with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, or MassDOT, to get the “Green Mile” up and running.
“Solar is the fastest and most affordable way to bring clean energy to Massachusetts — and MassDOT is proud to be part of the solution,” Monica Tibbits‑Nutt, secretary and CEO of MassDOT, told the Observer. “This innovative project will generate enough affordable electricity to power thousands of homes across the Commonwealth.”
The state’s transportation department looked at various highway medians across the state. The strip of land in Lexington checked all their boxes.
“It’s a really nice site,” said McAuliffe. “There are no wetlands, wildlife, or nature issues.” 
Aerial view of where the “Green Mile” will be on Route 2 in Lexington.
Compared to other more rural municipalities, Lexington does not have much solar, McAuliffe noted. So this program would not put much pressure on the local power grid.
“The only solar you’re going to have in Lexington is rooftop solar and maybe some canopies over parking lots, but not like 25 acres of a solar array because the real estate is just too valuable,” he said. “The grid can take it fairly easily.”
Solway will lease the land from the state for the next 20 years with support from the state’s SMART program (an incentive program where utility companies compensate solar owners for the electricity their systems produce) and investors.
Investors have long benefited from putting their money into solar because of the federal government’s solar tax credit, which has existed, in some capacity, since 2005.
In the early aughts, residents could get a 30 percent credit (up to $2,000) for their solar panels. A 2008 law aimed at stabilizing Wall Street removed that $2,000 limit. According to recent data from the IRS, the average consumer gets about $8,000 back for their installation, The Washington Post reported.
The tax credit was supposed to last another 10 years under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. But President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which he signed into law last week, slashed the solar tax credit.
“The solar industry is going to be scrambling to figure out how to make solar projects work,” McAuliffe said.
The Trump Administration’ new policy won’t affect any solar projects that begin construction before July 4, 2026, however. Iredale and McAuliffe are confident construction on their pilot program will be underway before then.
So far, the land has been secured by a letter of interest. Solway has been working with Eversource on their interconnection agreement for about a year (they expect it to be completed in the next six months or so) and they’ve met with Lexington stakeholders.
“Members of town staff…are excited to see this kind of innovative project proposed in Lexington,” Maggie Peard, Lexington’s sustainability and resilience officer, told the Observer. “Especially in dense areas, there are a lot of competing uses for areas where solar could be installed, so using space like a highway median that can’t be used for anything else would be a big win for renewable energy.”
The Solway founders estimate drivers will see the canopies along Route 2 by fall 2026.
There are about 398 more miles of highway median that can take this type of solar development in Massachusetts. If all goes well with the pilot program, Iredale and McAuliffe intend to expand their project to that unused land.
“If we could do all 400 miles, that’s equal to about one nuclear power plant…which could power hundreds of thousands of homes,” said McAuliffe.
But the timing of building the canopies along those 398 other miles of land likely won’t line up with the federal government’s slashing of the solar tax credit. There could be less of a financial incentive for investors to support the project.
If it all works out, the “Green Mile” could set an example for the rest of the nation.
“One Massachusetts will fit into Pennsylvania four times. If you start to do that math on that across the country, you can do a lot, and that’s all starting with a little project in Lexington, Massachusetts,” Iredale said.
The Solway founders will host a virtual public meeting on Thursday, July 17 from 6 to 7 p.m. to get the word about their project out to Lexington residents.
This story, published on July 14, 2025, originally appeared in The Lexington Observer and is used by permission.
