New solar power projects are soon to come to Northeast Ohio following the awarding of a more than $129 million federal grant for renewable energy.
The funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection agency is the largest grant awarded to Cuyahoga County since it adopted the charter form of government in 2011, Cuyghoga Green Energy Administrator Mike Foley said. The funds will be used to remediate brownfields and transform them into solar energy hubs.
"It's just kind of this irony of being able to take old, discarded, unusable land and making it usable now by and important, by putting a lot of solar panels on there, clean electricity that can feed into local grids," Foley said.
The partners are creating microgrids, Foley said, giving utility providers a way to offset its use of fossil-fueled energy.
Cuyahoga County and the city of Cleveland will receive $30 million and $20 million dollars respectively to bring 28 megawatts of solar power to the region, in addition to the four megawatts already being produced at it's solar site on a former landfill in the city of Brooklyn.
"With these resources, we will be able to expand our solar infrastructure, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions," Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne said. "This award underscores our commitment to climate leadership and to policies and programs that pave the way for a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable future for all."
The city of Painesville will receive the remaining $80 million to bring 35 megawatts of power to Painesville's former Diamond Shamrock chemical plant, along with habitat restoration led by the West Creek Conservancy.
Not only will this transition help the immediate environment, but it will benefit the larger community for generations to come.Painesville City Manager Douglas Lewis
The total 63 megawatts of solar power would be enough to power 11,000 homes, Cuyahoga County Director of Sustainability Valerie Katz said, but the real goal is to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
"We're displacing our reliance on the main grid," she said. "So we're therefore just displacing our reliance on coal and natural gas because most of first energy is still largely dependent on fossil fuels."
A good move for the climate
Increasing the use of solar power will help the partners reduce carbon emissions generated by burning fossil fuels, a key contributor to climate change.
"Coal-fired power plants are really bad for the environment. They're really bad for climate change," Foley said. "They're the dirtiest fuel source that that exists in our electric, network, and so being able to take off a coal fired power plant out of the network ... is a real, real, real big thing."
Since 1888, The city of Painesville has relied on a peaker coal-fired plant to generate additional electricity when the national grid isn't providing enough. With the investment, the city will be able to take the plant offline, Katz said, a move that is also expected to improve air quality.
"Every time it is fired up, it's releasing carbon dioxide, but it's also releasing pollutants like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds and particulate matter," she said. "Every time it's fired up, the people that live in the community around it are exposed to those pollutants. So that's kind of a direct reduction in pollution by ... decommissioning that power plant."
The project is one of several solar projects announced in recent months, following Cuyahoga County's Solar for Schools program that will bring solar installations to the rooftops of five high schools in the county and the collaborative solar for All program led by Growth Opps aiming to bring solar to underserved communities.
An additional $2 million will go to workforce development nonprofit Manufacturing Works to support apprenticeship programs specifically in underserved communities, Katz said. The program will prepare attendees for a career in renewable energy.
