ITHACA, N.Y. — A dormant Dryden landfill that was set to become a large-scale solar farm will remain a landfill after a state agency deemed the project too expensive to advance.
The Caswell Road landfill, which was decommissioned in 1985, was the perfect site for this kind of project, said Tompkins County Chief Sustainability Officer Terry Carroll in a county committee meeting this past Tuesday.
However, the project short-circuited financially when NYSERDA determined the cost of upgrading the nearby local substation made the development no longer viable. To distribute the energy produced at this site would require costly improvement to the Peruville substation, which is located within a mile of the landfill.
Since Tompkins County and New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) reached a Memorandum of Understanding that allowed the two organizations to work together back in 2023, county and town staff have poured hours into the project, said Dan Lamb, the deputy supervisor for the Town of Dryden.
Carroll told Planning, Energy and Environmental Quality (PEEQ) committee members a lot of state money had already been spent on this project.
The Caswell Solar project was set to be funded through NYSERDA’s Build-Ready program, which partners with local communities to give a second life to underutilized sites. Eligible sites include former industrial sites, brownfields and landfills, and the program seeks to convert them into renewable energy projects.
Typically, if a proposed project is accepted by the community, assessed as feasible, and agreed upon by NYSERDA and each of the site proposers, then the state agency will move forward with development, an agency spokesperson told The Ithaca Voice.
Once the permitting, design and interconnection process is completed, the state would auction the project to a private owner, who would then take over the site’s construction and operation.
The project itself was estimated to cost upwards of $20-25 million, a price Lamb based on other solar developments. The upgrades to the Peruville substation accounted for almost half of that, he said.
The state-funded project was proposed last year, but the site had been suggested as the possible location for a solar farm as far back as 2017. However, this original suggestion shifted to different locations after assessments deemed the upgrades to the local substation too expensive years before NYSERDA reached a similar conclusion.
Even then, the estimated cost of upgrading Peruville in 2018 was lower than NYSERDA’s current $9 million estimate, Lamb said.
“NYSERDA was aware of the planned previous project,” their spokesperson wrote in an email. “The Build-Ready’s initial viability assessments did not determine that interconnection costs would be an issue [by virtue of Build-Ready ability to offer a higher value incentive.]”
However, as the team moved forward with these assessments, they discovered more issues that doomed the project’s financial viability.
When completed, the 12.5 megawatt solar farm would have included 2.5 MW of battery storage.
“We don’t have anything like that in the entire county, so I wanted our town to lead the way on battery storage,” Lamb said. “I think that’s a necessity for solar power.”
The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that 1 MW of solar energy can generate enough electricity to power 173 homes. These estimates suggest that the Caswell solar farm would’ve been able to power over 2,000 homes.
However, the “innovative” batteries touted by city officials still raised concerns among Dryden residents.
Cindy Pataki lives down the road from the Caswell landfill. The news that the state had pulled its plans for the project “made [her] day.”
Pataki found out the project had been resurrected when a friend mailed her a Cortland Standard clipping of a story on the solar development. By the time the clipping arrived, NYSERDA had already had its April open house at the Village of Dryden Fire Hall.
“I couldn’t even go and say, ‘Do you know what you’re doing here?’” she told The Ithaca Voice in an interview.
Although she thinks solar panels are an eyesore on the landscape, Pataki remained unbothered because she can’t see the landfill from her house. That is until she heard about the batteries and the fire risks that come along with them.
“The risk of fire and having to evacuate my house or be told to ‘stay inside, it probably wasn’t toxic.’ Yeah, I don’t go for that,” she said. “Besides, it wouldn’t be good for my chickens.”
Instead, Pataki suggested reducing our consumption and looking further into nuclear energy. She also shared her concerns with the inadequacies of the grid.
“If we’re not going to strengthen the grid, what difference does it make if we can generate electricity,” she said.
Her burning questions were addressed by Lamb, who said the town had considered these risks in terms of fire safety. During the review process, the town brought in first responders and experts at the state level to discuss what would happen if the batteries ever caught fire.
The Caswell Solar project would have not just turned a site generally deemed as “not appropriate for development” into an energy generating opportunity for the town, but it would also have created tax revenue.
“That’s an estimated $70,000 that will not be produced for the town, the county, and the school district,” Lamb said.
If the project had been completed, Lamb said it would come with a $200,000 community bonus given to its host, which he said would have been used to fund Dryden’s rail trail project.
“I’m a little disappointed that it didn’t go forward, but I’m glad we tried it,” Lamb said.
Carroll said this setback is indicative of a larger problem in New York when it comes to funding renewable energy projects.
If this project were to hypothetically move forward, the site partners would have to front the entire cost of upgrading the substation, which would allow for more renewable energy developments to hook up to the grid in the future without bearing any of the past improvement costs.
“It’s first movers’ disadvantage,” Carroll told PEEQ members.
There remains a “small sliver of sunlight” for this project, however. Carroll told PEEQ members the county is talking to the Build-Ready team looking at ways to scale back the project, turning it into two smaller community distributed generation (CDG) solar facilities, by getting the utility to contribute some of the cost.
These CDGs would allegedly allow the electricity generated to run through existing lines with minimal improvements.
NYSERDA already paid the county for the first year of their three-year lease option agreement, which allows NYSERDA to lease the landfill site from the county. But the question remains: if the project is canceled, will NYSERDA continue paying the county to keep the lease option in effect?
“Our understanding is at this time, yes, but that could change in the future,” Carroll said.
If the lease option agreement remains in effect, any new federal programs that suddenly become available could potentially be pursued alongside the state, Carroll said.
The project was still in the pipeline as of July 19, according to documents shared between T. G. Miller, a local civil engineering and land surveying firm, and the town planning department.
“But as it stands right now, we are not moving forward with anything with Caswell,” Carroll said.
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