POWER September 2023 - 20

TOP PLANT
Solar Farm at a Landfill Site
Brings New Meaning for
Waste to Energy
Courtesy: CS Energy
The Mount Olive project in New Jersey is a model for turning a brownfield site into
a " brightfield, " supporting cleaner power generation and providing a wealth of
benefits for the local community.
Darrell Proctor
T
he U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has reported that
there are more than 10,000 closed
landfills in the U.S. Reclamation of these
sites is big business; many locations
have been remediated and turned into
parks, gardens, and well-known golf
courses across the country.
Landfills also can host energy projects.
Research groups, including the
World Resources Institute, have said
U.S.
cities and counties announced
more than 20 brownfield solar power
projects in 2021, turning these sites into
" brightfields, " with more than 200 MW
of electricity generation capacity. More
such projects are on the way, with additional
tax credits available for landfills
and other brownfield sites through the
Inflation Reduction Act.
The EPA is a backer of such installations,
realizing the benefits of putting
solar arrays on landfills, old coal mines,
Superfund sites, and closed industrial facilities.
One such project is the 25.6-MW
Mount Olive installation in New Jersey.
When completed early in 2023, it was
the largest landfill solar project in North
America, with power production supporting
the state's goal of increasing generation
from renewable energy resources.
" Only a small fraction of the 10,000
closed landfills across the U.S. have
been converted into solar fields, " said
Chris Ichter, executive vice president at
CEP Renewables, owner of the property
and the group responsible for maintaining
the landfill cap. " The unique structure
we used to implement this project now
20
serves as a model that can be leveraged
to redevelop more closed landfills into
revenue-producing assets that facilitate
cleaner air, tax revenue, jobs, and more
affordable energy for residents. "
Mount Olive has been touted by the
solar power industry for the redevelopment
process, along with the design and
construction execution, used to turn the
former landfill into an energy showcase.
It's a landmark project for New Jersey,
and now a POWER Top Plant award winner
for renewable energy.
Overcoming Construction Challenges
There are challenges to remediating and
redeveloping a brownfield site, and several
specific challenges when it comes to
installing a solar array at such a location.
Closed landfills are usually not suitable for
traditional redevelopment, due to containing
hazardous materials. That means putting
solar modules on these sites requires
a different kind of installation, with a ballasted
system that doesn't drive foundations
deep into the ground, where the
system could pierce the landfill cap and
disturb the waste underground.
A landfill settlement analysis is a critical
step. Builders must ensure that the
design and construction process is adequate
for installing the solar array atop
the landfill, while avoiding damage to its
protective layer. The settlement and stability
of various sections of the landfill
are determined through this analysis,
which helps specify which locations are
best for the ballast, racking, modules,
and electrical equipment. Construction
also needs to allow for access to the
www.powermag.com
site for ongoing landfill operation and
maintenance activities.
All of that came into play at Mount
Olive, and the size of the project meant
developers had to keep a close eye on
product costs. Terrasmart, the racking
and mounting provider, had experienced
rising costs for concrete, which affected
the cost of its ballast blocks. The design
team worked to minimize the tilt of the
solar array (Figure 1) in order to reduce
the amount and size of blocks needed,
but the builders still needed to ensure
high energy yields from the solar array.
Because the site is subject to cold
weather conditions for part of the year,
the solar array tilt can't be too low; that
would allow snow to pile up and put
stress on the racking system. And as noted
earlier, that's particularly important for
projects such as Mount Olive, because
the sensitive landfill cap can't be impacted
by what's happening on its surface.
Terrasmart, a company with more
than 20 GW of solar deployed across
4,900 systems-and years of experience
in solar landfill development-is
known for providing solar racking technologies
that provide solutions for projects
covering all types of terrain. The
company leveraged its experience on
several other large-scale landfill solar
projects in cold weather locations, and
designed and engineered its GLIDE ballasted
mounting solution for Mount Olive.
This involved several studies of the
site, from looking at wind impacts to analyzing
the potential of solar power generation,
to determine the optimal tilt and
ballast size to help CEP meet its project
POWER | September 2023
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POWER September 2023

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