• Exclusive Content
  • Events
  • Endeavor Business Media Energy
    1. Renewables

    3.6-MW Solar Array built on former Landfill is ready for Operations in Massachusetts

    April 28, 2022
    Solar power projects are land intensive, sometimes requiring 10 acres per 1 MW capacity. Increasingly, developers are siting solar farms on capped landfills, such as Sunnyside project in Houston
    Image credit CS Energy
    29 Solar Landfill 1920x1048 3 626a8e66cd252

    Solar energy systems developer Syncarpha Capital has received the permission to operate its Tewksbury Landfill project, which hosts a 3.6-MW DC/2.8 MW AC ballast-mounted solar array.

    The 50-acre Sutton Brook Disposal Area supplies energy to the City of Everett, local National Grid residents and the Tufts University through its Community Solar program.

    The estimated annual output from this array is 4,535,000 kWh, which is equivalent to avoiding CO2 emissions from 361,718 gallons of gasoline consumed or equivalent to avoiding CO2 emissions from 3,556,645 pounds of coal burned. The energy produced is enough to power more than 400 local homes.

    The system includes an approximately 2-MW AC battery storage system. It will be connected to the National Grid electric utility grid.

    "We are very excited to bring this project online. It's great we are able to make a positive impact on the grid while also repurposing an environmentally encumbered tract of land" says Graeme Dutkowsky, VP of Construction - Syncarpha Capital. "There were many challenges encountered along the way and it wouldn't have been possible to overcome them without open lines of communication and cooperation among all project stakeholders."

    Solar power projects are land intensive, sometimes requiring 10 acres per 1 MW capacity. Increasingly, developers are siting solar farms on capped landfills, such as Sunnyside project in Houston and the Solar Star Urbana Landfill Community Solar in Illinois.

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.