American Council of Engineering Companies of Texas





		Renewable Energy From Landfill Covers





		Like them or not, landfills remain a primary disposal method for municipal solid waste. The development of the Tessman Road Solar Energy Cover offers a classic “lemons into lemonade” solution that allows a landfill that has reached capacity to be efficiently transformed into a source of valuable renewable energy. This project represents the first design and installation of a solar landfill capping system, integrating modern photovoltaic technology with a landfill closure. This innovative design can generate commercial scale renewable solar energy, delivering important economic and environmental benefits.

		The transformation of a portion of the Tessman Road Landfill outside San Antonio, Texas, into the first-in-the-world landfill renewable energy park created a “solar moment.” With more than 2,500 active and 17,000 closed landfills in the United States alone, this new system is nothing short of revolutionary with an opportunity to transform landfills around the world into renewable energy parks.

		The solar energy generated on site can easily be combined with the landfill gas-to-energy system to provide for a joint “green” energy system. In fact, the combined renewable energy from the solar panels and the landfill gas-to-energy system at this Texas landfill is generating enough power to supply 5,500 homes, with ample room to expand the solar panel-covered landfill surface. The savings to the environment from this combined system as opposed to using traditional sources of electricity to power those same homes equates to removing over 1,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Landfill owner Republic Services estimates that it could apply solar covers to more than 2,300 acres of landfills it owns across the United States, with potential to generate more than 400 megawatts of solar energy and prevent emissions from millions of tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.


		The Solar Energy Cover for the Tessman Road Landfill Project was designed by HDR based in Omaha, Nebraska. This project was a gold medal winner in the 2010 ACEC Texas Engineering Excellence Awards Competition.