报告:圣. Mary’s County Can Meet Renewable Solar Energy Goals with Smart Siting & 明智地使用土地

安纳波利斯，马里兰州——今天，在圣. 玛丽县太阳能特遣队, 十大赌博正规老平台’s 环保创新中心 (CIC) presented a new report: St .的最佳太阳能选址. 玛丽县，马里兰州. 利用地理空间分析, the report identifies optimal solar sites and answers the key question: Are enough optimal sites available to meet St. Mary’s County’s renewable energy goals for solar energy while avoiding impacts to agriculture and the environment?

分析结果表明:St. Mary’s County offers significant optimal opportunities for solar placement in the existing built environment that would minimally impact the natural landscape or prime agricultural land; including on 屋顶 of commercial and residential buildings, 停车场上方的太阳能屋顶, 有关堆填区封顶, around the Marlay-Taylor Wastewater Reclamation Facility and on county-owned properties. Other additional preferred solar opportunities were also identified.

Maryland is one of 30 states in the United States with a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a mandate to increase electricity production from renewable energy sources. Maryland’s mandate requires 50% of electricity sold by utilities to come from renewable sources, 有14.5%来自太阳能. While the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) that serves St. 玛丽县被排除在14个国家之外.5% carve-out and is instead 要求 to reach a solar carve-out of 2.5%的零售销售，土地在St. Mary’s County could still be used for solar energy installations to meet statewide goals outside SMECO’s service area.

Solar installations range from small rooftop photovoltaic systems and medium-sized distributed generation installations that use energy locally and feed excess energy back to the grid, to large ground-mounted installations that sell energy directly to utilities. 州长可再生能源特别工作组 & Siting estimates that the land needed to meet the state’s RPS goal will require between 7,750和33,在全州范围内占地1000英亩. 的 专责小组报告 确定可能影响0.4和1.7%的可用耕地.7和2.9%的可用主要农田, 在马里兰州, 和写, “虽然总量很小, the encroachment of utility solar on prime agricultural and farmland remains a serious concern to rural communities, 政策制定者和利益相关者.”

St. Mary’s County’s community members have raised concerns surrounding recent applications and requests for utility-scale solar in the county. County Commissioner Morgan suggested that the County Commissioners form a Solar Task Force to gather information about the state and local requirements and make recommendations to the Commissioners.

太阳能工作组于2020年6月首次举行会议. 工作组负责征求社区意见, 调查社区需要, 了解太阳能法规, 确定潜在的选址, discussing potential strengths and challenges withfacilities, 并向专员提出建议. 在8月, the task force had approved a contract with 十大赌博正规老平台 to study optimal solar citing for the county.

“With the existing and ongoing loss of farmland to residential and commercial development and concerns regarding environmental impacts on land developed for solar energy, 必须最大限度地利用退化的土地, 屋顶和停车场为未来的太阳能电池阵列,” said 十大赌博正规老平台’s 环保创新中心 Vice President of Technology Susan Minnemeyer.

“Our high-resolution land cover data allowed us to do a very detailed analysis, 小到单个包裹, to inform how much area is available in optimal and preferred sites for solar energy development. We also calculated the energy generation potential of these locations,” continued Minnemeyer.

“Based on our analysis of solar energy development opportunities, St. 玛丽县展示了创造4的潜力,097千兆瓦时/年的电力来自太阳能从4,431 acres of optimal sites such as degraded lands and landfills, 屋顶, 停车场顶篷, 以及公有土地,” said 十大赌博正规老平台 Senior GIS Analyst Emily Wiggans. “还有另外4个,026 GWh/yr of potential electrical generation available from 2,614 acres of preferred ground-mounted opportunities less than one mile from electrical transmission lines. 的se numbers well exceed the 331 GWh/yr estimate for St. 与该州其他地区相比，玛丽的太阳能份额.”

方法

的 methods set out to identify all potential solar sites — those that meet legal (zoning) and technical criteria for allowing solar energy development. 第一个, 各县的地块根据一系列的环境状况进行了排名, 股本, 以及确定最佳选址的效率标准. Optimal sites were either in the built environment – on 屋顶, parking lots, and degraded lands.

中投公司还确定了第二层地点, 首选地面安装地点, that would avoid land use tradeoffs with agriculture or environmentally valuable lands. 的se sites met the following criteria: had less than 50% total tree canopy in the parcel, had more than 5 acres of ‘Solar Opportunity Area’ (defined as a sum of low vegetation, 贫瘠的, 以及草本类高分辨率土地覆盖分类), 只有不到50%的优质农业土壤, 全州范围内重要的土壤少于75%, and was not in a designated no-go zone (defined as protected, 或者法律限制, 区域), or was within a designated Intensely Developed Area of the critical area. Sites that were within a mile of an existing transmission line were defined as ‘preferred’ while sites that met the criteria but were further away were designated as ‘other opportunities.’

的 results are displayed in a web app that is open to the public at: http://tinyurl.com/CCStMarysSolarStudy.

要阅读该研究的全文，请访问 i4z.chriswaldegar.com or 位.ly / stmaryssolar.