If you are researching potential California sites for renewable energy development, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab have released an online mapping tool to help find viable options.
The Renewable Energy Siting Tool provides aerial perspectives and data for approximately 11,000 contaminated, degraded or cleaned-up sites in the state such as brownfields, Superfund sites, and former mines that are ideal for renewable energy redevelopment.
The maps highlight 75 high-priority sites for utility-scale renewable energy and thousands of smaller-scale development parcels.
“Solar, wind and geothermal power projects may be the best use for certain tracts of impaired lands,” says Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “By finding these properties and putting them back into productive use, we can reduce our carbon footprint while meeting the state’s energy needs.”
Besides helping developers find sites, the tool is meant to assist local governments and landowners in land use decisions, as well as providing a potential avenue to reclaim value from their land and to create local green jobs. This strategy has been used to good effect, for example, in New Jersey.
EPA estimates there are up to 490,000 sites and almost 15 million acres of potentially contaminated properties in the US, many of which are suitable for redevelopment as clean energy installations.
Another tool locates sites across the country: brownfields, rooftops, parking lots, and abandoned land that are untapped sources for gigawatts of clean energy.
Here’s the California tool:
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