DEERFIELD — More than $6 million in revenue is expected to come to the town’s coffers over the next 20 years following Wednesday’s approval of a lease amendment for a solar array on the former landfill on Lee Road.

The Selectboard approved a lease amendment between Deerfield Renewables, a Delaware-based limited liability corporation, and the town that will see Deerfield Renewables work with the energy company Nexamp to send the array’s output to Eversource and the local energy grid.

The document, which includes a lease agreement and a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement, will see the town receive annual rent payments starting at $217,281 in the first year and escalating over 20 years to $316,538 for a total of nearly $5.28 million. The PILOT payments start at about $43,000 and will escalate to about $63,000 over 20 years for a total of nearly $1.06 million, according to Town Administrator Christopher Dunne and Selectboard Chair Tim Hilchey.

“It’s substantial income that the town has waited a long time to get into the reality stage,” Hilchey said.

Dunne said the agreements will take effect once the array starts commercial operations. The PILOT agreement will also need to be approved by the Board of Assessors.

The signing of the agreements closes a decade-long saga to try to bring a solar array to the capped landfill at 42 Lee Road, which was used by the community from 1940 to 1997 and where the Transfer Station is located. The Planning Board gave site plan approval to Deerfield Renewables and Nexamp to construct the 2.95-megawatt, 9.9-acre solar array in August 2023. The landfill cap will not be disturbed during the construction process.

Dunne said the next steps are to get a construction bond from Nexamp, which will likely begin construction this summer.

A lease had been previously signed by the two parties in December 2020, but Dunne said state incentives were phased out, which required Nexamp to rethink how it would refinance the project. The new approach involves a net-metering system that will have the landlord, as in Deerfield, serve as the facility’s “host customer.”

Dunne credited the town’s attorneys, energy consultant Beth Greenblatt and former Town Administrator Kayce Warren for helping the agreements reach the finish line.

“A lot of people put a lot of time — well over a decade — on trying to get something to happen here,” said Selectboard member Trevor McDaniel. “It’s really nice to finally have it come to fruition and to get a good funding stream.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.