On average, the Ivy Landfill in Western Albemarle County takes in 210 tons of trash a day, six days a week. Most of the 300-acre site is closed -- covered with soil and grass, but the area must still maintain the facility – and that costs money. Enter a local firm called the Community Power Group. It approached the local director of solid waste, Phil McKalips, and suggested installing 7,200 solar panels.
"We get rent payments for the ground for up to 35 years. We don’t have to mow it, because they’ll take care of all the maintenance, and it’s exciting for us to see one of the things you can do with a landfill."
Frankly, he adds, there are not many good uses for this land.
"There are very limited things you want to do on top of a landfill. You obviously don’t want to build houses there. I think it’s even questionable whether you want to have a lot of athletic fields. There would be a lot of expense involved in that."
As part of the project, Community Power invited a half dozen civil engineering students from UVA to consider the challenge and come up with a plan. Among them, Caroline Maher and Erik Hammerquist.
"Finding alternative forms of energy to help contribute toward solving out climate crisis I think is incredibly important —especially when we have spaces like this," says Hammerquist.
"We basically went through all the same steps that they went through – site assessment, erosion and sediment control, planning the solar arrangement, choosing the different panels, and then we came up with a design," Maher adds.
Their design was very much like what the professionals proposed. Dominion Energy was impressed and decided to buy the solar array – its first on a landfill, and Business Development Manager Willie Barton says it won’t be the last.
"We are working across several counties for a similar opportunity."
He notes the location of the Ivy Landfill is ideal.
“There’s a distribution line right here that we will be connecting this project into.”
The company hopes to begin generating three megawatts in September – enough to power 750 homes and businesses.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
