The power generated by the facility will be enough to power 2,200 average US households and offset 13,200 tons of CO2. It features REC TwinPeak 2S 72-cell solar panels and was energised in June 2018. Owned by a subsidiary of Building Energy, a multinational IPP in the renewable energy industry, the Annapolis Renewable Energy Park is the largest closed landfill solar project in North America according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It covers 80 acres of previously unusable landfill.
“The Annapolis solar installation is a remarkable example of how communities can convert a formerly unusable landfill property into a powerhouse supplier of clean energy that creates also hundreds of new jobs” said Cary Hayes, President of REC Americas LLC. “Likewise, old coal mine areas offer an opportunity to switch to clean solar energy. Considering the fact that the retirement of outdated coal power plants in the US continues rapidly due to decreasing economics, connected coal mines have the chance for a ‘second life’ by being converted to solar parks”.
According to the Sierra Club, since 2010, 274 coal-fired power plants have been retired in the US or are proposed to be retired by a specific date.
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