The city of New York, famous for triumphing over adversity, is putting that can-do attitude to work in the latest update to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s "Greater, Greener" sustainability plan, which will see many of the city’s rubbish dumps and landfills converted into solar farms.
PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York, contains 132 initiatives for improving everything from New York’s air quality by cutting back use of oil for heating, to an energy efficiency loans scheme, to cleaning up and developing former "brownfield" sites – vacant land which is often thought to be unusable due to environmental contamination.
Renewable energy will have a major role to play in PlanNYC’s goal of ultimately reducing the Big Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The City will partner with private utilities to install more than 60 megawatts (MW) of solar energy on rooftops and in large-scale solar thermal facilities located at former rubbish dumps, landfills and other city-owned sites in and around the city.
"City landfills can accommodate more than 50 MW of solar power on only a small fraction of available land," the PlanNYC report states. "Installing solar power at these sites could significantly improve local air quality by reducing generation at the city’s dirtiest plants during periods of peak summer demand."
A $125 million renewable energy management program will ensure the 15 planned solar PV and solar thermal plants come to fruition by PlanNYC’s 2015 deadline.
"PlaNYC is our agenda for a greener, greater New York that will help guide our city to a better future. . . we’ve come an incredibly long way toward our goals, and now, together, we’re finding new ways to accelerate our progress," Mayor Bloomberg said.
New York isn’t the only place in the USA to pursue turning trash into solar gold – Massachusetts is also in the planning stages of building solar farms on landfill sites.
