Reuse Degraded Lands for Clean Energy

In March, the Biden administration awarded $475 million to five clean energy demonstration projects on mine lands—including a Pennsylvania solar project on a former coal mine in Clearfield County. Funding came from the Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land (CEML) funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Those projects have outsized importance. Solar development in particular, here and around the country, has encountered local opposition (fossil fuel industry-funded astroturf and disinformation campaigns aside) stemming from concerns about consuming agricultural and forest land and changing community character.

Smart solutions like agrivoltaics hold great promise in addressing such concerns. So do degraded lands.

Converting closed landfills, brownfields, coal mines, federally-owned sites, and old coal plant sites to clean energy and storage can create environmental and economic benefits, win local support, and help build momentum for the clean energy transition.

Three must-read documents point the way to making that happen in Pennsylvania and across the nation:  

• Mining the Sun from The Nature Conservancy
• The Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation’s (EPCAMR) Assessment of Solar Development on Previously Impacted Mine Lands in Pennsylvania
• The Untapped Potential of ‘Repurposed Energy’ from Kleinman Center Visiting Scholar Alexandra Klass

As Klass writes, degraded lands constitute as much as 10% of land in the lower 48 states. TNC, which has built a national web map of these lands, notes National Renewable Energy Laboratory and EPA estimates that these lands could support 715-1,300 GW of solar power—enough to power 120-200 million homes annually.

In Pennsylvania, EPCAMR says that there are 169,000 acres of abandoned mine lands that could potentially host medium-scale or community solar development (not yet legal in PA). Plus, there are 84,000 acres of active surface mines and coal refuse sites in the commonwealth that, in the long term, could potentially be repurposed for clean energy development.

There are advantages to siting solar and other clean energy projects on degraded lands, in addition to environmental cleanup and avoiding the conversion of forests and farm fields. These sites can have access to transmission lines—and perhaps valuable grid access rights—as well as roads and other infrastructure that can be reused. Putting these sites back to productive use brings tax revenue and construction jobs to neighboring communities, and aids in a just energy transition.

But there are also significant hurdles.

Clean energy development on degraded sites is typically more expensive than greenfield development. AML sites in Pennsylvania, for example, are generally smaller and fragmented. Site conditions can rule out or complicate clean energy development. Multiple landowners (both surface and below ground) can make leasing or acquisition more difficult. Needed transmission upgrades can increase capital costs. And brownfield sites may carry contamination liabilities and require additional government oversight and permitting.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credit of up to 10% for projects built in energy communities, combined with state mine reclamation incentives, federal AML funding, other state incentive examples described by Klass, are key tools to offset those higher costs. All three reports offer policy recommendations to augment and leverage those incentives. Klass provides examples of state permitting reforms and suggests that expedited siting and permitting processes can be piloted on degraded lands and perhaps expanded to all clean energy projects.

The reports discuss the importance of centering host communities in the development process to both advance justice and manage project risks—something that not all solar developers do. The impact of siting practices on community support is the subject of forthcoming DOE-funded research by the Kleinman Center and partners.

As TNC states, “Nationwide, there are 500 mostly small renewable energy projects sited on brownfields and mine land—a fraction of what’s possible. We are far from realizing the potential of successfully repurposing degraded sites for clean energy development.”

This work should be a priority in the clean energy transition.

John Quigley

Senior Fellow, Kleinman Center

John Quigley is a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center and previously served on the Center’s Advisory Board. He served as Secretary of the PA Department of Environmental Protection and of the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.