RE-Powering America's Land Initiative: July2015 Renewable Energy on Potentially Contaminated Land, Landfills and Mine Sites Re-Powering America's Land Initiative Action Plan 2.0: Overview of Goals and Objectives Introduction EPA's RE-Powering America's Land Initiative encourages renewable energy development on current and formerly contaminated lands, landfills, and mine sites when such development is aligned with the community's vision for the site. The Initiative is a non-regulatory effort to integrate reuse planning, specifically renewable energy development, into federal, state, local, tribal and voluntary cleanups. The RE-Powering Initiative creates new markets for blighted land. Through the reuse of these sites, communities can transform liabilities into assets, providing land resources for clean energy development and diminishing development pressures on open space. Since the RE-Powering Initiative's inception, more than 150 renewable energy installations on 144 contaminated lands, landfills and mine sites have been established. These sites are in 35 states and territories, representing a combined 1,046 megawatts (MW) of capacity and providing numerous benefits to their communities. Publicly available, stakeholder- reported information indicates that communities have saved millions of dollars in energy costs, created construction jobs, and received new property tax revenue as a result of reusing these sites for renewable energy. Goal 1: Provide Technical and Programmatic Assistance Objective 1: Enhance and Disseminate Tools Objective 2: Expedite Projects Goal 2: Promote Policies and Best Practices that Encourage Renewable Energy on Contaminated Lands Objective 3: Highlight and Analyze Programs and Policies at the Federal, State, Local and Tribal Level Objective 4: Identify Successful Strategies, Articulate Impacts and Disseminate Lessons Learned Goal 3: Partner with Stakeholders and Leverage Agency Efforts Objective 5: Strengthen Networks and Facilitate Collaboration among Stakeholders Objective 6: Leverage Funding and Build Capacity ThSM&ly&fpfUky itiCu&t0tM^MmQ3/MsMeri fully op&MtomiSiFKe fehwt^iOl I SERA ------- RE-Powering America's Land Initiative: July2015 Renewable Energy on Potentially Contaminated Land, Landfills and Mine Sites What benefits and other impacts are associated with RE-Powering projects? Achieving environmental benefits: facilitating the cleanup of sites, the protection of open space, and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; Saving money on cleanup: sites still undergoing remediation can save money on the electricity needed to power the cleanup (green remediation); Saving money to provide electricity: projects can be structured to require little, if any, upfront investment and then provide electricity to local residents, businesses, and industries at a reduced cost; Providing jobs: renewable energy projects can spur direct and indirect local employment opportunities in both construction and operation; Providing annual tax revenue: installations bring unproductive land back into productive use, thus increasing the tax base for the site; Promoting revitalization: by finding uses for lands that may have limited reuse options; and Offering development advantages: a reduction in project development cost (leveraging existing infrastructure, reduced land costs and tax incentives), including a reduction in project development time (through streamlined permitting and zoning); and opportunities to create partnerships with communities in their efforts to revitalize contaminated properties. What is EPA doing to facilitate renewable energy development on contaminated lands, landfills and mine sites? EPA directly and indirectly supports cleanup of contaminated properties, but does not site renewable energy. Remediating contaminated sites and determining their reuse result from the efforts of a diverse set of stakeholders including communities, developers, states, tribes, local government, and the financial community. The goals and objectives of EPA's RE-Powering Initiative are a result of feedback received from numerous meetings and listening sessions in which stakeholders asked for tools, enhanced outreach, guidance, and technical assistance. Working in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the RE-Powering Initiative has propelled renewable energy development on contaminated lands from merely an interesting idea to an ever-increasing portfolio of projects. v>EPA ------- RE-Powering America's Land Initiative: July2015 Renewable Energy on Potentially Contaminated Land, Landfills and Mine Sites Accomplishment Highlights Made it easier to identify potential sites by creating a mapping tool with 66,000 sites on more than 35 million acres Developed new environmental liability guidance tailored to the kind of tenant relationships often used in renewable energy development Released Re-Powering Liability Reference Guide Developed handbook to integrate the cleanup process with renewable energy development Organized stakeholder meetings and workshops, including a finance workshop, convening bankers, developers, communities, and insurance companies to discuss structuring deals to address environmental issues Released best practices for the installation of solar photovoltaics on landfills Shared success stories and examples of how sites are being reused Analyzed trends and reported semi-annually on completed projects Developed decision trees for solar and wind technologies to allow stakeholders to screen their sites Completed Evaluation Scoping Assessment for the RE-Powering Initiative The RE-Powering Initiative's activities are visible within the efforts of an increasingly diverse group of stakeholders. Examples include: The inclusion of related provisions in the President's 2013 Memorandum on Federal Leadership on Energy Management; The inclusion by several utilities of contaminated lands as a criterion in their requests for renewable energy sites; State interest in representation of their sites in EPA's mapping tool; and The expressed preferences within the Bureau of Land Management's review of right-of-way applications to direct development away from lands with high conflict or sensitive resource values and towards low conflict areas such as previously disturbed sites. How can RE-Powering America's Land help your project? By developing, enhancing and disseminating tools By sharing best practices, resources and highlighting success Through partnerships and technical assistance Through communications and outreach Fait C&rson solaramw fa 'Colorado, For copies of these resources and for more information, see RE-Powering America's Land website at http://www.epa.gov/renewableenergyland/ and contact the Initiative by email at cleanenergy@epa.gov. SERA ------- |