The second phase of a solar park in Nesquehoning is moving closer to becoming a reality.

On Tuesday night, Nesquehoning Planning Commission voted to give the plan conditional approval, with a number of conditions required before and after ground is broken on the site.David Lear, senior project manager for Lehigh Engineering Associates Inc. of Walnutport, answered questions raised by the planning commission, including questions about areas of phase one of the project that were proposed, but not yet fully complete.Issues included the visitors center and parking lot, swales and grass coverage on the developed area.Greg Haas of Carbon Engineering, the borough engineer, said after the discussion that he was OK with the explanations and plans moving forward.The board then went into executive session to discuss a final decision, after which two motions were made for the plan.The first approved sending a list of recommendations to the Nesquehoning Zoning Hearing Board.The recommendations included adding stipulations to the plan where one month after clearing the staging area, which will house equipment and solar panels during construction, a building permit to construct the visitors center that was proposed in stage one will be secured by Con Edison Development from the borough.The company must then complete the center and pavers for the parking lot area within six months after completing building permit; and secure an occupancy permit from the borough.The second granted conditional preliminary/final plan approval as submitted with comments and stipulations from Carbon Engineering. Included in the approval are waivers that the plan as submitted is a final plan; it doesn't show the existing features 500 feet beyond the limits; and the plan scale.The proposed PA Solar Park phase II, which is being created by Con Edison Development, would complete the 20-megawatt park.No details on the number of panels or the cost of the project were available Tuesday night, Lear said.The previously completed phase of the solar park, which was constructed by Green Energy Capital Partners of Conshohocken and operated by Con Edison Development Inc., is located on land leased by the Kovatch family and contains 39,600 panels that generate 10 megawatts of electricity. The electricity generated is then sold to PPL Electric.The new phase will sit on land leased by Boca Holdings and Kovatch and has an aggressive construction schedule, which calls for breaking ground this spring with a completion date by the end of the year.The plans now move on to the borough zoning hearing board on Friday. If approved, it moves on to borough council, which meets on Feb. 25.Lear said that in addition to approvals, the company is waiting to obtain permits from the Carbon County Conservation District for its erosion sedimentation control plan, NPDES permit and permit to cross the stream on the property.He noted that once completed, the park will generate 20 megawatts of green energy, more than enough to power the borough of Nesquehoning's residences."It doesn't feed directly to them," Lear said, noting that it goes into the PPL grid.