Inovateus Solar is proud to have just received the POWER Magazine Top Plant Award for Renewable Energy for our Kokomo Solar One brownfield project, so we’d like to offer some brief guidance on how to turn more brownfield sites into productive solar energy brightfields.
What is a Brownfield?
A brownfield is essentially a land parcel contaminated by hazardous substances or pollutants, which can limit the type of development permitted on the site. Landfills, contaminated industrial and manufacturing sites, and old mines are a few common examples of brownfields.
Although a site’s location and attributes may be attractive for redevelopment, brownfield properties can have limited usefulness, as they must adhere to regulations of the brownfield division of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Regulations can include soil caps, which limit depths of ground penetration permitted on a site, as well as workmanship certifications needed to perform any activity on site.
Due to the early stage unknown factors of remediation, such as cleanup costs and site restrictions, brownfield properties can remain empty for decades. This is a common issue that rust belt communities must contend with. To counter this problem, a local city or county may seek to take over site ownership in order to streamline maintenance and remediation costs associated with federal funding through the EPA. The support of the EPA and local community can expedite interest from private developers seeking to avoid high-risk sites.
What is a Brightfield?
A brightfield is land converted to use solar panels to produce electricity. Solar brightfields can be installed on many different types of land, including brownfields.
Brightfields can be large enough to significantly offset the energy loads of adjacent communities. For commercial off-takers, the solar power can flow directly to an end-user, such as a factory or data center.
What Brownfield Sites are Ideal for Solar Development?
No matter your location in the U.S., there is a good chance that there are one or more brownfields in your area. According to the EPA, there are about 450,000 brownfields in the US that are in various stages of cleanup and “capping”—placing an environmentally protective surface over the brownfield. A vast majority have the EPA manage the clean-up in some form. Recently, the EPA developed a mapping tool to highlight known brownfields which possess some optimal qualities for conversion to wind or solar farms.
Rendering of the old Kokomo steel plant from the 1970’s
The Kokomo Brownfield site- 7.15 MWdc
Solar brightfield considerations include:
The cleanup stage. Brownfield owners aren’t able to begin redevelopment without a great deal of soil testing, environmental reports, community engagement, and approvals by various government agencies. Typically, this kind of development can take years before starting any solar redevelopment. If your brownfield is already being remediated and close to completion, a solar developer will be more interested in inspecting the site.
The type of cap. In addition to the brownfield’s environmental risks and potential for future contamination, solar developers will consider the type of brownfield cap. It’s easier to develop a solar installation on a cap that can be penetrated with various types of mounting systems. If cap penetration is impractical or impossible, solar developers can use custom ballasted systems or a combination of custom ballasted and traditional ground-mount systems.
Energy infrastructure. Former industrial sites are often near electrical distribution transmission substations, and that’s great for transmitting future solar power to the local grid or to a private company. New transmission infrastructure can still be built or upgraded, but the upfront project costs will be more expensive, so the power generated will cost more to produce and transmit.
Brownfield land size. It takes about five acres of land to build one megawatt (MW) of a solar power plant. Solar developers prefer that the brightfield size be between 5 to 20 MW, or approximately 25 to 100 acres.
It’s possible to build on larger sites, but due to the environmental remediation concerns, building and future maintenance make brightfield projects more difficult and less cost-effective
Assessment Grants
Technical Assistance Training & Research Grants
Federal Grants From EPA
Multipurpose (MP) Grants
Revolving Loan Fund (RFL) Grants
Area-Wide Planning Grants
State & Tribal Response Program Grants
Environmental Workforce Development & Job Training (EWDJT) Grants
Cleanup Grants
Federal grants are all available on the EPA’s website. These grants can range from assessment grants, clean up grants, job training grants, and comprehensive grants that include a package of incentives for accomplishing certain goals. There are also some state-specific brownfield programs.
Brownfield solar development may also qualify for the 26% Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC), as well as other municipal, county, state, and utility incentives that you can find on the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (www.dsireusa.org)
Our Inovateus Solar team can also help you to find potential brownfield incentives that would be applicable to your project and area.
How can Inovateus help?
Converting a brownfield to a brightfield can be a complex process involving coordination between more players than a standard solar project. Our award-winning Kokomo Solar I project is a testament to the litany of challenges a developer and installer needs to overcome to successfully bring a project to fruition.
To effectively work on a brownfield site, specific safety requirements and OSHA compliant practices must be met when to conduct on site – work. To meet these safety standards, Inovateus personnel became certified in OSHA-40 and Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER).
The good news is the EPA has estimated property values can increase by 5 to 15% following the conversion of brownfields to brightfields. Beyond the benefit from clean energy, development of brightfields supports local jobs while also creating new jobs. “Trickle down” jobs can also arise, for instance from new centers of commercial business and recreation eager to locate their projects adjacent to clean energy facilities. The City of Kokomo added Rec fields next to their solar array – you can read further those details in the EPA’s Kokomo Solar One case study.
If you own or manage a brownfield you may be eager to turn into a brightfield, contact the team at Inovateus for a free consultation today. We look forward to Building a Brilliant Tomorrow with you!
