Dive Brief:

• Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G), a regulated gas and electric utility company in New Jersey, began construction of a 10.14 MW solar farm located on the site of the capped Parklands landfill, which closed in 1989.
• The solar project aims to convert 40 acres of landfill space into the Parklands Solar Farm, an area capable of producing power for almost 2,000 households every year.
• By early 2015, the solar farm expects to cover 80 acres of former landfill and brownfield space with more than 70,000 solar panels. 

Dive Insight:

In May, Waste Management, which owns the Parklands landfill, announced that it had generated 9.82 million megawatts of energy from waste in 2013. This figure represents more energy than was created by the entire US solar industry, which the Energy Information Administration pegs at 9.25 million megawatt hours,​ in the same year.

Joe Forline, the vice president of consumer solutions for PSE&G said, “We can convert this property into a productive asset that adds to New Jersey’s inventory of renewable energy resources without reducing the state’s open space.”