American: The old dump change to Solar Energy farm

Old landfills are becoming the most significant site for solar energy farms in many US cities.

Suitable land fund for solar projects is running low, so the city of Annapolis (Maryland) thought of a site they had long considered useless: the old landfill.

Public infrastructure official David Jarrell said the 25-hectare landfill closed in 1993, “ lying there like a debt." But the site is now covered with grass and contains over 50,000 solar panels, totaling 50,000 solar panels—a capacity of 18 megawatts. The only vestiges of the past are a few vents that protrude above the ground to release emissions from the waste buried below.

"We know debt turns into assets," Mr. Jarrell said proudly of Annapolis's solar farm - a project seen as a model for which the US government is preparing to replicate federal funding.

The old landfill in the city of Annapolis now contains more than 50,000 solar panels - Photo: RTE.

When completed in 2018, Annapolis's farm was the largest landfill-renovated solar project in the country. But since then, this facility has been surpassed many times.

Such a series of projects can help cities transition to renewable energy and reduce electricity bills, generating revenue for local budgets by leasing idle land.

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) director Matthew Popkin said: "Projects that make clean energy production visible to people reduce production costs, are a clear example of efforts to reduce emissions."

Although the number of solar farms converted from landfills has increased in recent years, the potential is still huge. According to Popkin's director, the US has at least 10,000 closed or abandoned landfills - most of which are publicly owned. The roughly 4,300 sites his team analyzed alone could produce 63 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 7.8 million homes.

February data from the US Energy Information Administration shows that renewables account for more than 21% of US electricity production. President Biden has set a goal of zero carbon pollution by 2035.

Many cities are racing to meet the above target, but the need for land poses a significant challenge for the transformation. The city of Ann Arbor (Michigan state) has an ambition to use 100% renewable energy by 2030, but finding a place to build renewable energy infrastructure takes a lot of work.

"We have almost run out of space to build," said sustainability official Missy Stults. We don't have a large area of land for renewable energy, except for the old landfill. We built a farm with a capacity of 20 megawatts.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are currently 300 solar farms converted from landfills nationwide. Nearly 50 farms completed construction after 2019.

And the scale is increasing. A solar farm converted from a landfill with more than 26 megawatts capacity in New Jersey was completed last December. In the center of Columbus (Ohio), there is a farm with a capacity of nearly 50 megawatts. Houston (Ohio) has a farm with a capacity of 52 megawatts.

Under regulatory guidelines issued in April, solar farms renovated from landfills or industrial sites will receive federal funding.

Source: quanly.moitruongvadothi.vn