--- title: U.S. Landfills Are Getting a Second Life as Solar Farms description: New data show that local governments are inking increasingly ambitious deals for solar projects on capped brownfield sites. canonical: https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/ author: Emily Barone article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-06-02T15:45:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:36:04.986Z article:section: Climate og:title: U.S. Landfills Are Getting a Second Life as Solar Farms og:description: New data show that local governments are inking increasingly ambitious deals for solar projects on capped brownfield sites. og:url: https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt503effdf8eff6ef7/698a3272b3fce3c7ed0c9505/GettyImages-1262816621.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Georgia, Atlanta, aerial view from aircraft window, Hickory Ridge Landfill, Exposed Geomembrane Solar Cover, EGSC, Carlisle Energy Services og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: U.S. Landfills Are Getting a Second Life as Solar Farms twitter:description: New data show that local governments are inking increasingly ambitious deals for solar projects on capped brownfield sites. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt503effdf8eff6ef7/698a3272b3fce3c7ed0c9505/GettyImages-1262816621.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # U.S. Landfills Are Getting a Second Life as Solar Farms > Sponsored content. 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After working at Exxon Mobil for over a decade, Dar-Lon Chang quit his job and moved his family to Geos, a "geosolar" fossil fuel-free community in Arvada Colorado._ by [Emily Barone](https://time.com/author/emily-barone/) ## Emily Barone Jun 2, 2022 3:45 PM UTC After working at Exxon Mobil for over a decade, Dar-Lon Chang quit his job and moved his family to Geos, a "geosolar" fossil fuel-free community in Arvada Colorado. by [Emily Barone](https://time.com/author/emily-barone/) ## Emily Barone Jun 2, 2022 3:45 PM UTC When landfills get capped and grassed over, they have the appearance of lush, rolling hills. Despite their green appearance, however, these sites are known as “brownfields”—a term for an environmentally hazardous site without a promising future. Indeed, landfills are typically unsuitable for development because the contents below the surface are both contaminated and physically unstable. But what they can be repurposed for are solar farms, and these so-called “brightfields” are growing in number and size. Last year, local governments across the U.S. announced a combined 207 megawatts of energy from 21 landfill solar projects, according to [recent figures from the World Resources Institute](https://www.wri.org/insights/us-clean-energy-trends) and RMI, an organization that advances clean energy projects. That’s a 10-fold increase in energy capacity compared with recent years, and it includes the three largest projects in the country to date. The surge reflects growing interest among municipalities to develop increasingly ambitious clean energy projects. For example, one brightfield deal in Columbus, Ohio, announced last September, will generate 50 megawatts of energy. Another project of similar capacity, announced in January 2021, is being developed on 240 acres of landfill in Houston, Texas. Those two projects account for half of the brightfield energy announced last year, and each will power about 5,000 homes annually. While it’s not unheard of for capped landfills to become parks or golf courses, solar farms can be a more feasible alternative, as there’s no need to prepare or maintain the site to accommodate the public. Solar farms can also leverage resources that typically exist near landfills already, like access roads and connections to electric infrastructure. And unlike golf courses, brightfields harness a clean power source that can be distributed to a broad population, thereby helping to correct environmental injustices that people living near the landfill site have endured. On a national scale, there is huge potential in these projects. Based on [an RMI brightfield analysis](https://rmi.org/insight/the-future-of-landfills-is-bright/) from late 2021, closed landfills could host more than 60 gigawatts of solar capacity—enough energy to power the state of South Carolina. But getting there will take time. Brightfields require different upfront costs and regulatory oversight than other solar projects because of the nature of the land they sit on. “There’s more due diligence, there’s more design and engineering, and people’s time that has to go into sufficiently planning this,” says Matthew Popkin, an urban transformation manager at RMI. “If you put a stake in the grass in a random field poorly, the dirt might suffer. If you put a stake in a landfill poorly, the community might suffer.” There are ways to mitigate those barriers, however. Large scale projects may be more attractive as it is cheaper and easier to go through those planning processes once for a massive solar farm than many times for smaller farms. Also, the federal government and state governments offer brownfield cleanup grants that can offset the cost. Finally, costs could go down over time as the solar industry gains experience and refines best practices to manage and implement future brightfield projects, such as using installations that don’t penetrate the ground. “Local governments are really pushing their clean energy goals,” says Popkin. “And sure, you can put 200 kilowatts on your city hall. You can put it on a couple of facilities, buildings, or fire stations. But when you start to look at municipally owned land that is in your control and that is able to host a large project, suddenly a brownfield or a closed landfill looks very attractive because it can’t be used for … housing, mixed-use apartments, or the next Walmart or Target superstore.” ## Transcript [00:01] So I can't ever keep their names straight  I don't know which goats are which. [00:06] The second-biggest one with the goatee;  that's Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers. I [00:11] did not name that one. How come your friends  wanted to name him aaron rodgers so badly? [00:17] A football player I think he's  known as the GOAT? Ah yes, the GOAT. [00:27] They're our most famous residents. There are five  of them, and we use them as our mascot because [00:32] people who come to visit and tour, they always are  amazed to see that we have goats doing something [00:39] that's uh usually you need lawn mowers for. So  they're our natural lawn mowers, they're there to [00:46] help us keep the weeds from getting out of control  in the areas that haven't been developed yet. [01:15] When I started with Exxon-Mobil back in 2003, I  knew that fossil fuels had to be on their way out. [01:23] And I expected that over the course of my  career, I would be part of transitioning [01:27] away from fossil fuels. They talked about natural  gas as a bridge fuel; a bridge fuel to renewable [01:32] energy future. And I believed that. But over  the course of my career I saw that bridge fuel [01:39] become a bridge to nowhere. It ended up that  natural gas was something the fossil fuel industry [01:44] wanted to keep doing. I just couldn't be a part  of it, I felt I was doing more harm than good. [01:50] And I didn't want my daughter to grow  up without hope, that there was a way [01:54] to live differently and to transition away  from fossil fuels. And so we went online, [01:59] we looked for a sustainable community, and this  one seemed to be the most promising. 'Hey Melissa [02:04] thanks for coming to movie night  last week.' 'Yeah it was fun!' [02:10] The GEOS neighborhood is a decarbonized, fully  electric neighborhood that has no fossil fuel. [02:15] We have no natural gas lines, so you don't have  to exhaust any carbon dioxide; any pollution from [02:21] fossil fuels from these houses because they're  built so that they don't need as much energy. [02:27] The reason why natural gas furnaces are so needed  is because American houses are built to be leaky. [02:33] And because they're so leaky, you have to  have these natural gas furnaces in order to [02:37] meet the energy needs of heating the homes  during the coldest days of the winter. But [02:42] if you have very tightly insulated homes, then  you don't need natural gas furnaces. Instead you [02:47] can use very efficient heat pumps which are like  refrigerators except they can also heat the home. [02:59] The main electricity usages is  actually for the heat pumps. [03:08] While the remainder of the electricity  usage is for charging our electric vehicles. [03:20] I'm a long time New York-trained investment  banker. Moved to Colorado years ago. I [03:27] raised money for oil and gas which is a very  prominent industry here. About 10 years ago, [03:34] I began to realize that that there was an  issue with climate and with global warming [03:39] and the development of solar interested me.  So I began to get interested in seeing what it [03:47] would take to raise capital to begin to fund that  part of the industry at a more aggressive level. [03:54] I find that people here are much more thoughtful  about their impact on the environment, [03:59] whereas in Houston, it seemed like almost  everybody's livelihoods was tied in some way [04:03] to oil prices. I tried to put solar panels on my  rooftop and my homeowner's association blocked me. [04:10] I felt isolated in the sense that my concern for  the climate crisis was either dismissed or seen as [04:18] a threat. I feel that the people here feel like  they're at the forefront of a major change that [04:24] they believe in. About 65-70 percent of the homes  in the US are still heated by fossil fuel. The new [04:32] ones - amazingly - are continuing to be heated by  fossil fuel. But by taking it home and heating it [04:39] and cooking with gas, what you do is you create  about 2,000 pounds of carbon a year into the [04:46] atmosphere, which we cannot stand. It's now more  economic to use natural power that's renewable [04:53] with this system that these homes  use. It's really not that difficult. [04:59] Thanks you all for helping me with writing the  public comments for the metro meeting last Tuesday [05:05] and how we wanted to talk with Chad about why he  didn't respond to us with regards to the natural [05:11] gas line that he wants to bring over from the  Westwood-Mesa neighborhood over there down here. [05:17] Across the street from our development, they're  planning to install natural gas lines by using a [05:22] community that already has natural gas lines and  extending their pipelines into the next section [05:27] of our development. And the new developer who took  over initially put out a press release saying that [05:33] he would build upon our core principles  of sustainability and net-zero living. [05:38] But it turned out that those are just  words, and this outraged us. Yeah so [05:45] Chad responded to the public comment that we made  that he didn't want to have a response because he [05:52] felt that this should just be water on the bridge,  that there's no reason for us to argue, and that [05:59] he just doesn't want to respond because he  doesn't want to argue about it anymore. We [06:04] came together in our Metro District board meetings  in order to make our outrage heard. We started [06:10] to be active with the City Council and the city  Sustainability Committee and now we're active in [06:18] getting media involved and getting people to  know about what's going on. And getting as much [06:24] attention as possible to make the builder aware  that there are consequences if they put in natural [06:30] gas lines. If everyone could live in a net zero  home, and it would be cost-effective to do so, [06:36] we would obviously all do that. That is uh that  would be awesome and I think we'll get there [06:41] someday. It's just not there yet, and so the  obstacles are upfront cost. Because of market [06:47] demands, we could not do net-zero geothermal on  a production scale. These homes will still be [06:55] 50 times more sustainable than something that was  built in the 60's and 70's and 80's right and so [07:02] our view is that building great homes is better  than building no homes that would be perfect. [07:20] I feel very much rewarded in seeing my  daughter grow up here and seeing her [07:25] internalize these values. And she's  seeing how important it is to have a voice [07:30] about these matters. That was a  mistake that I made when I was [07:34] in the university, I thought that if I just  focused on technical research, that other [07:39] people could take care of policy. But really,  scientists and engineers, they need to be part of [07:45] making their voices heard and influencing  policy to be able to be a part of the solution. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/"},"headline":"U.S. Landfills Are Getting a Second Life as Solar Farms","datePublished":"2022-06-02T15:45:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T09:36:04.986Z","description":"New data show that local governments are inking increasingly ambitious deals for solar projects on capped brownfield sites.","url":"https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/","keywords":["energy","climate change"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt503effdf8eff6ef7/698a3272b3fce3c7ed0c9505/GettyImages-1262816621.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Emily Barone","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/emily-barone/"}],"articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt503effdf8eff6ef7/698a3272b3fce3c7ed0c9505/GettyImages-1262816621.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Georgia, Atlanta, aerial view from aircraft window, Hickory Ridge Landfill, Exposed Geomembrane Solar Cover, EGSC, Carlisle Energy Services","caption":"An aerial view of the Hickory Ridge Landfill in Atlanta, Ga., which is covered by a geomembrane liner and photovoltaic solar panels.","creditText":"Jeff Greenberg—Universal Images/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/energy/","name":"energy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/","name":"U.S. Landfills Are Getting a Second Life as Solar Farms"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Cleaning House: Life in a Fossil Fuel-Free Community","description":"After working at Exxon Mobil for over a decade, Dar-Lon Chang quit his job and moved his family to Geos, a \"geosolar\" fossil fuel-free community in Arvada Colorado.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/9PYkjXKy/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2022-05-10T21:02:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/9PYkjXKy.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/","duration":"PT8M11S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6183376/landfills-becoming-solar-farms/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```