The not-in-my-backyard perception of renewable energy projects has led to the delay or cancellation of thousands of projects around the globe over several decades. However, several governments are pushing companies to decarbonise and encouraging them to invest heavily in expanding renewable energy capacity to support these aims. While energy companies often seek out prime land for the development of wind and solar farms, much to the dismay of rural communities, landfills offer an alternative option that is unlikely to garner such broad opposition.
The use of prime agricultural land for renewable energy projects presents a plethora of challenges. This has led energy companies to seek less attractive, but equally convenient, sites to develop new projects. Meanwhile, waste management companies are being pressured to reduce or mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions now more than ever. Therefore, developing solar farms on waste sites seems like the perfect solution to both problems.
Closed landfills are not typically suitable for conventional redevelopment as they contain hazardous materials. This means there is less competition for the use of the land. However, solar energy companies must consider the challenges of using this land when developing the site. For example, solar modules on these sites must be installed using a ballasted system that doesn’t drive foundations deep into the ground where they could pierce its protective layer and disturb the waste underground. To ensure the site is suitable and understand how best to develop it, energy companies must conduct a landfill settlement analysis.
In the U.S., recent data suggests that there has been an 80 percent increase in solar developments on landfillsin the last five years. There are over 10,000 closed landfills across the country, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which present a significant opportunity for renewable energy development. Similar sites have previously been transformed into parks, gardens, and golf courses, but few have been used to produce solar power.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act climate policy introduced tax credits for projects such as these. In 2021, cities and counties across the U.S. announced over 20 ‘brownfield solar power projects’, turning old landfills into “brightfields”, with a combined electricity generation capacity of more than 200 MW. One example is the 25.6-MW Mount Olive site in New Jersey, which was completed in 2023. When it first opened, it was the biggest landfill solar project in North America.
Chris Ichter, the Executive Vice President of CEP Renewables, which owns Mount Olive, explained, “The unique structure we used to implement this project now 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.”
In France, in February, the waste management company Veolia announced plans to develop 40 new solar projects on restored landfills across the country. The French firm aims to make its services energy self-sufficient through this development. It has chosen non-hazardous restored landfills to develop new projects over 400 hectares of land. Once complete, the solar farms could provide 400 MW of clean energy to power 130,000 homes, with the first facilities expected to be operational by 2027. Veolia is currently pursuing feasibility assessments. France, like many other countries, is juggling aims to expand its renewable energy capacity with the scarcity of suitable land to develop new sites.
In the U.K., the government hopes to increase the country’s existing 14 GW of solar power capacity fivefold to 70 GW by 2035. This will require the rapid expansion of the country’s solar network, with the development of hundreds of new sites countrywide. Several new waste-to-energy sites are currently being built, and Veolia is supporting this development. The French firm started developing the ‘largest solar farm in Europe to be built on a closed landfill site’ on a former rubbish dump in Essex in September. The Ockendon solar farm will be the third-largest solar site in the U.K., with over 100,000 solar modules across 70 hectares, which could power up to 15,000 homes.
In October, Enovert announced that it had commenced construction at a landfill in Gloucester. The company plans to install 4,000 solar panels to power up to 2,500 homes across 146 hectares of land. The site will also be home to a biomass generator and a woodland, with 100,000 trees of different species. Enovert’s Regional Manager, Graeme Buckman, stated, “We’re trying to turn this space into something useful, as well as helping to achieve a net-zero carbon objective.”
To provide enough clean energy for the growing global electricity demand, energy companies must continue to develop solar farms, and other renewable energy projects, on prime land. However, this can be greatly supported by the development of solar sites on less attractive land, such as on old landfill sites. The development of waste-to-solar sites could help waste companies decarbonise, as well as garner less negative attention from communities that oppose conventional renewable energy projects.
