Residents voted to give Selectmen the authority to enter into a PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, agreement with Clean Energy Collective, which has a solar farm in Marion.

There are more than 550 solar projects in Massachusetts, and 90 percent of them are part of some type of PILOT agreement.

Essentially, it is a fixed cost that the company will pay the town over the duration of the project instead of paying taxes.

Town Administrator Paul Dawson explained that it is mutually beneficial to both the town and the solar company because it equalizes the payments over town. This is good for the town because instead of being paid less over time as the value of the equipment depreciates, it will collect a steady revenue throughout the roughly 20 years of the project.

While some residents were worried that it was a tax break for the solar project, Dawson stressed that the town would not be losing any money by entering into the agreement.

“This is not a tax break. This is not a tax deal,” he said. “The developer will be responsible to pay the full amount of taxes. All this will do is allow them to be made in equal payments. It’s simply a different way of collecting revenue.”