Isra-Mart srl:Massachusetts town finds solar use for landfill sites

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A town in Massachusetts is hoping to revitalise an old landfill site by letting a developer build a solar project on the land, as part of a project that could provide a template for landfill sites around the world.

Landfills are notoriously difficult to redevelop as leaking gases and the risk of subsidence make it virtually impossible to construct buildings on the sites. However, Southern Sky Renewable Energy has signed an agreement with the town of Canton in New England to build a 5.6MW solar array on its former landfill site, which was capped 25 years ago and remains an unused, grassy area. The site will consist of 24,000 three-by-five foot panels and should be producing energy by next year.

The town is hoping to save $70m over the next 25 years through the venture, which will bring it both energy savings and extra revenues, it said. The deal represents 7.4 per cent of the current solar energy base in the state.

A 2009 report produced for the EPA titled Solar Power Installations on Closed Landfills: Technical and Regulatory Considerations indicated some potential issues for landfill-based solar installations, warning that steep slopes, thin landfill caps, structural settlement, and landfill cap maintenance could all hamper development. But the EPA concluded that these issues could be resolved as many landfill sites may be suitable for solar development.

Other landfill-based solar projects have been agreed in the past. In 2008, North Carolina-based FLS Energy signed a power-purchase agreement with clients for a landfill-based solar plant in the state, while Republic Services, which owns the 48-acre Hickory Ridge landfill in Georgia, vowed to turn it into a solar project this year, having done the same with a site in San Antonio, Texas in 2009. That system used flexible photovoltaic strips designed to be shaped around the contours of the site to maximise exposure to sunlight. It also complemented a landfill-based biogas-to-energy system at the site, installed seven years prior.