Armoracia Solar, a 7.3-megawatt project in western Illinois, almost didn’t get across the finish line. Despite the state’s status as one of the fastest-growing community solar markets in the country, the project ran into local concerns about land use and property values that initially led a county zoning board to reject the project.

But Armoracia, which first applied for permits in 2024, got back on track, thanks in part to a Bay Area startup with a unique approach to designing and installing solar. The project was acquired this week by Aligned Climate Capital, and is now expected to be energized later this year.

Planted Solar was brought into the project last year to leverage its software and robots to design high-density, terrain‑following arrays and automate the installation process.

The company’s approach drastically reduces the amount of land needed for a solar farm and eliminates site grading, which disturbs topsoil, slows stormwater permitting, and generally prevents the land under an array from being used. Instead, Planted relies on a digital twin of the site to design projects in dense, fixed rows that conform to existing hills and contours. Its solar-installing robots — custom-built tracked hydraulic machines — then drive around the existing, uneven ground, installing posts at the appropriate depth for the terrain following the digital twin.

That method drastically increased the density of Armoracia. The project will now include more than seven MW on 16 acres, compared to an earlier plan that required around 26 acres. That change was central to gaining the approval of the local zoning board, Planted founder and CEO Eric Brown told Latitude Media.

Aligned acquired the project, which is already under construction, through Aligned Solar Partners, a fund focused on financing and managing middle market solar projects. The company in 2025 told Latitude that it is increasingly focusing on community solar; its infrastructure fund dedicated to community solar closed at $40 million over its target last year, even in a difficult fundraising context.

The partnership is a key milestone for Planted’s own growth, Brown said. To build its pipeline of projects, Planted needs institutional buyers to put up the construction financing and own the projects in the long term. Aligned’s acquisition is a commercial-scale vote of confidence in Planted’s approach, signaling to other institutional investors that the technology can support standard tax equity and construction-debt structures. That will make it easier for future projects using Planted’s tech to line up financing and move into construction, he added.

Community opposition challenges

Armoracia faced significant community opposition almost from the outset. The project’s developers first filed for a special use permit in November 2024. At that time, the plan was to build an 8-MW project spanning 26 acres. But the developer withdrew their petition before it came to a vote, when it was clear the project would likely be rejected due to concerns about property values, neighborhood impacts, and setbacks from nearby homes.

When a new petition for Armoracia came up again before county officials in early 2025, hearings and community comments again raised a similar set of objections, despite changes to the proposal that included reducing its land usage and adding vegetative screening.

Homeowners in the area worried that the construction timeline — 26 weeks of work, six days per week — would be disruptive for the neighborhood, and could hurt property values. The local school district was struggling to raise enrollment, and argued a solar field would take up land that could otherwise host new homes with additional students. The zoning board denied Armoracia’s application, and local outlets described the project as “futureless.” 

That’s when the developer brought Planted onto the project, in an attempt to address the land use and visibility concerns.

Planted’s approach, which was integrated during the redesign and development phase after the initial permit request had been rejected, allowed the developer to increase the setbacks from the neighboring subdivision to 225 feet — beyond the state requirement (and initial proposal) of 150 feet. Planted panels also sit significantly lower to the ground than single axis tracker panels, limiting the view from neighbors’ backyards.

In mid-April of 2025, the board voted to approve the special use permit for Armoracia, citing “concessions” that largely depended on decreased land use for the panels themselves.

By the time Aligned stepped in to acquire the project, it was in the final stages of development, and ready to begin construction. 

Planted, for its part, has a 20 GW pipeline of projects, most of which will either be built onsite at a data center, or will directly support one. But community solar is a good fit for Planted’s approach, Brown said: “Distributed solar developers and IPPs are running into more and more challenges with land and grid constraints, particularly as footprints grow in pretty competitive solar markets like Illinois.”

There are several additional community solar projects in Planted’s pipeline that will start construction this year, including in Illinois and other land-constrained markets. Getting these projects to the point of construction, he added, has been “a long time coming.”

“We’ve had these projects in development for years, and now they’re finally getting into construction and getting all the financing ducks in a row.”