HARTFORD — The top of the former Hartford Landfill is now home to nearly 4,000 solar panels.
Fifty-two rows of solar panels are collecting direct current to be transformed into as much as 1 megawatt of electricity — enough energy to power up to 1,000 homes.
Thursday morning, a collection of government officials and business leaders traveled to the summit of the 96-acre, capped garbage pile alongside the Connecticut River to mark the grand opening of the solar operation, with Mayor Pedro Segarra and others flipping a ceremonial switch. The panels have actually been in operation since June 17.
"It represents an important marriage between the dual responsibilities of environmental policy makers in Connecticut, particularly solar waste management and renewable energy," said Thomas D. Kirk, president of the recently renamed quasi-public trash agency, the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority. "We wedded those together today by using state-of-the-art renewable technology to generate electricity on top of a state-of-the-art closed landfill."
The $11.9 million project to cap off the landfill and build the solar array is the first one of its kind in Connecticut to turn the all but wasted space on top of the landfill into a renewable energy project.
The solar panels cover only 6 acres of the summit. MIRA, which leases the land from the city, has considered other options for the rest of the land, including more solar panels and a green house.
In addition to the shiny solar panels, more than 100 gas wells on the landfill site also help generate power. MIRA sells the gas to DeltaPro Inc., which converts it to electricity. In fact, said Dave Bodendorf, senior environmental engineer for MIRA, the gas generates about 1.3 megawatts — "day, night, all the time."
"So that generates enough for 1,300 homes all the time," he said. "[The solar array] generates enough for 1,000 when the sun shines in the middle of the day."
Just over a year ago, the agency in charge of the now-closed landfill, the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, announced a plan to cap the final third of the landfill and install a 1-megawatt solar array there.
While the project is unique here, it does fit a national trend as dozens of projects across the United States have outfitted the limited-use landfill space with solar panels, but also wind turbines, wood-burning biomass facilities, hydropower and geothermal.
The solar project was paid for by a trash authority fund set up to close the landfill.
The project's output is subsidized by the state's Zero Emissions Renewable Energy Credit program, which is run by Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating and funded by ratepayers. The program gives the trash authority 11 cents for each kilowatt of power generated.
Covering the mountain of garbage beneath the solar installation is a layer of sand and a layer of impermeable synthetic grass, which keeps the water out.
"This is also the first of its kind landfill cap in New England," Bodendorf said. "So it was really the marrying of this cap with the solar array, which can't penetrate the cap."Copyright © 2015, Hartford Courant