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BUILDINGS
THE TIME IS RIPE FOR COMMUNITIES TO EMBRACE CLEAN ENERGY ON BROWNFIELDS
By
RMI
Published
6 days ago
2 Comments
New federal incentives can help communities repurpose brownfields into
brightfields, high-value sites that support a more equitable, clean energy
economy. To speed this transition across America, RMI is co-launching the first
ever Brightfields Accelerator.
The industrial revolution fundamentally reshaped America’s economy but left
behind a legacy of brownfields — land that is potentially contaminated, and
often neglected and underutilized. These kinds of sites are far more common than
you may think, and include closed landfills, shuttered coal plants and mines,
inactive steel mills, and abandoned factories. The US EPA estimates that there
are over 450,000 brownfield sites across America. For too many communities,
these brownfields are daily reminders of past productivity and the struggle to
redevelop sites that may pose health and safety hazards.
However, deploying clean energy (typically solar) on brownfields to convert them
into “brightfields” is an often overlooked, underdiscussed opportunity that can
deliver multiple community benefits and contribute to an equitable, clean energy
transition. These benefits include:
1. Sustainably reusing already developed land to reduce the need to build on
undeveloped land, farms, and other agricultural land;
2. Reinvesting in sites that often lack other redevelopment options, especially
closed landfills and Superfund sites;
3. Helping to address past environmental injustices by safely repurposing
hazardous sites that were too often sited in or near lower income and
marginalized communities; and,
4. Supporting a clean energy economy and local jobs by co-locating on-site
clean energy with new manufacturing and other energy-intensive facilities,
such as green hydrogen production and data centers.
Communities are starting to take advantage of these benefits with innovative
projects such as Pittsburgh’s 2 megawatt rooftop solar on a former steel mill at
Hazelwood Green (see header image, above), Annapolis’ Solar Park on a closed
landfill, and Houston’s forthcoming Sunnyside Energy solar project on a closed
landfill.
But despite these impressive examples and the huge opportunity brightfields
offer, most local governments and site owners struggle to repurpose these more
complicated sites, and energy developers struggle to find feasible sites ready
for reuse. To effectively and strategically advance brightfield projects across
the US, communities need to understand the potential of brightfields, how the
newly passed Inflation Reduction Act makes brightfields more financially
attractive, and where they can get technical assistance in deploying them.
THE POTENTIAL OF BRIGHTFIELDS IS SIGNIFICANT
Through October 2021, the US EPA has tracked only 459 completed brightfields
projects totaling a mere 1.9 gigawatts of clean energy capacity. Yet, the agency
has pre-screened more than 190,000 brownfields nationwide for possible clean
energy deployment, and estimates a potential for hundreds of gigawatts (GW) of
clean energy. And the completed projects are highly concentrated geographically,
with 52% of completed brightfields built in just 3 states: Massachusetts, New
Jersey, and New York. In other words, we’ve only just started to scratch the
surface of what’s possible for brightfields.
Additionally, RMI’s report, The Future of Landfills is Bright, estimates that
America’s closed landfills alone could host at least 63 GW of solar, enough to
power 7.8 million American homes or the entire state of South Carolina.
Brightfields are poised to play a major role in the energy transition.
HOW THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT RESHAPES THE ECONOMICS OF BRIGHTFIELDS
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) extends two of the primary economic drivers of
clean energy — the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Production Tax Credit (PTC).
Brightfields, like any clean energy project, will be able to take advantage of
these broadly applicable clean energy tax credits. More importantly, for the
first time ever, the IRA includes federal incentives that explicitly support
brightfields and the communities where brownfields are most common:
1. “Energy Communities”: This provision creates a 10% tax credit bonus for
solar and wind projects sited on brownfields; in areas with significant
employment in coal, oil, gas extraction or processing since 2000; or, in or
adjacent to a census tract where a coal mine closed since 2000 or coal unit
retired since 2010.
2. Projects In or Serving Low-Income Communities: This provision also creates
two incentives for low-income community-oriented projects up to 5 MWs:
* 10% tax credit bonus for solar and wind facilities located in qualifying
low-income communities or on Tribal land; or,
* 20% tax credit bonus for projects that financially benefit low-income or
Tribal communities, most likely through a community solar-type structure.
Projects are defined as “benefitting” these groups if at least 50% of the
financial benefits of the project go to households with incomes less than
200% poverty line or incomes less than 80% of an area’s gross median
income.
Because closed landfills, Superfund sites, and other brownfield sites were often
located in disadvantaged and marginalized communities, these two incentives work
in tandem to encourage brightfields reinvestment in lower income areas that were
home to or bordered industrial and other fossil-fuel intensive operations. Taken
together, these two incentives dramatically shift where investment in the clean
energy economy will likely be prioritized.
The new Energy Communities and Low-Income Communities tax credit incentives can
fundamentally alter the equation for projects depending on where they are sited
and who they benefit. In fact, for projects meeting all these criteria, it’s
possible to achieve a 70% investment tax credit. At this level, more costly,
complex projects that had previously struggled to pencil out financially may now
get a green light.
WHAT IS DIRECT PAY?
Did you know that for the first time ever, the Inflation Reduction Act enables
tax-exempt entities to claim direct payment instead of tax credits for
qualifying projects? This opens the door for projects to be owned by tax-exempt
entities (i.e., municipalities, states, Tribes, publicly-owned utilities,
religious institutions, and other non-profits). Before this, these entities were
ineligible to directly capture the benefits of federal tax credits because they
did not pay federal taxes.
WANT HELP WITH A BRIGHTFIELDS PROJECT? RMI IS LAUNCHING THE FIRST-EVER
BRIGHTFIELDS ACCELERATOR
RMI is partnering with the Kansas State University’s (KSU) Technical Assistance
to Brownfields program to launch the first-ever accelerator for brightfields
projects to create a broader project development pipeline for the market. This
program will include technical assistance, tools, and other resources to help
local governments, site-owners, and community partners make smart and
sustainable choices about the reuse and revitalization of brownfield sites and
prepare for funding, financing, and procurement for clean energy. We will help
communities understand and leverage the new IRA incentives that encourage clean
energy projects on brownfields and in low-income communities.
This 4 MW solar project is in Cuyahoga County, OH and supplies enough
electricity to power 500 homes. Photo courtesy of Jackie Lombardi via RMI.
This technical assistance builds directly on RMI’s years of experience as one of
the leading technical partners to major US cities through the American Cities
Climate Challenge’s Renewables Accelerator. In this initiative, RMI helped
cities small and large across America implement their climate action plans and
collectively procure over 500 MW of clean energy. Now, RMI will be enhancing the
brightfields toolbox and helping communities prepare for brightfields
development.
The US energy system has always required land — from coal mines to oil rigs to
natural gas pads. Unquestionably, the energy transition will need open areas to
host solar panels, wind farms, and other clean energy facilities. The good news
is that brownfields of all types — including closed landfills, old industrial
areas, and even abandoned mines — can be part of the solution if developed
safely, strategically, and in accordance with environmental regulations.
Given the enormous untapped potential of these sites and new IRA incentives, the
time is ripe to shift brightfields from an emerging practice to a mainstream
opportunity. Doing so will enable communities of all shapes and sizes to embrace
and benefit from the clean energy transition.
To learn more about how your community can participate in this Brightfields
Accelerator or how you can support RMI’s Brightfields Accelerator, contact
Matthew Popkin at mpopkin@rmi.org.
By Matthew Popkin
© 2021 Rocky Mountain Institute. Published with permission. Originally posted
on RMI Outlet.
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In this article:brownfields, Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, RMI, solar
brownfields
Written By RMI
Since 1982, RMI (previously Rocky Mountain Institute) has advanced market-based
solutions that transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous and
secure future. An independent, nonprofit think-and-do tank, RMI engages with
businesses, communities and institutions to accelerate and scale replicable
solutions that drive the cost-effective shift from fossil fuels to efficiency
and renewables. Please visit http://www.rmi.org for more information.
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