Minnesota eyes solar arrays along highways

Sep 25 - Duluth News-Tribune (MN)

Minnesota drivers soon could be speeding past lines of solar panels along state highways if a plan by the Minnesota Department of Transportation works out.

The department on Wednesday announced it has asked companies to submit proposals to rent highway rights of way to build groups of solar panels, called arrays, churning out pollution-free electricity.

The state wants to hear from those companies by Nov. 3 .

"We've already been approached by several companies expressing interest, so we thought we should be fair and put it out there and give everyone a chance,'' Rick Morey , project manager for MnDOT, told the News Tribune . "We're really not sure where this is going to go. But we think it has some big potential."

The concept isn't new -- Oregon has been leasing land along highways to solar energy companies since 2008, and several European highways are lined by solar panels.

"We've got 19,000 lane miles in Oregon and all this underutilized land that, other than being mowed and having the litter picked up, is open and available and shovel-ready for companies to come and do solar,'' said Allison Hamilton , solar highway program manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation .

MnDOT oversees more than 250,000 acres of right-of-way land.

Under the Minnesota plan, inspired by Gov. Mark Dayton's executive order for energy efficiency in government, the state wants to charge "fair market value" to companies to lease the rights of way to build the arrays.

"We've got a lot of retaining walls, and noise walls, too. Maybe they could hang solar panels on those? We don't know yet,'' Morey said.

Safety comes first, however, and Morey said engineers will make sure solar panel configurations can't interfere with driving or road maintenance. Solar panels absorb and don't reflect sunlight. "But obviously glare could be an issue,'' Morey said. "And the projects couldn't be anywhere inside our clear zones."

Those are zones along each road that must remain clear for snowplowing and any vehicles that leave the roadway.

"But there's still plenty of land outside the clear zones that have potential,'' Morey said. "That's the first thing we want to hear from them, is where they think this will work. We'll check those spots out and then we can sit down and see what they want to do."

The minimum size for a solar array proposal is one megawatt, which would cover about an acre of land. MnDOT said it expects to pick up to five sites for the pilot project.

Oregon's example

Oregon was the first state in the U.S. to use highway rights of way for solar energy with a small, 104-kilowatt project near the interchange of Interstates 5 and 205 near Portland . A much-larger, 1.75-megawatt project opened in 2012 on unused land near a rest area along Interstate 5 south of Portland . That's enough electricity to power 165 all-electric homes, Hamilton said.

That array includes 7,000 solar panels across seven acres. The partnership between Portland General Electric and the Oregon DOT is open for public tours.

Oregon is eyeing another large roadside project by 2016, Hamilton said, with that one adjacent to a polluted brownfield site. She said the cost of installing solar has dropped by about 75 percent from 2008, when the state's first project was completed, to today.

Hamilton said both state and federal renewable energy tax credits helped push the Oregon projects forward. And she said Minnesota shouldn't expect to get rich off leasing land for solar arrays -- Oregon gets only $100 annually for the 7-acre site. But the state also receives a share of the renewable energy credits the project generates.

And solar energy gets "some pretty good exposure" along the busy freeway.

"I get calls and e-mails from people who see these projects and are interested in solar,'' Hamilton said. "It's good for people to see that their electricity really can come from something other than coal."

Minnesota state agencies are under orders to incorporate the use of clean energy and work to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. It's those emissions, namely carbon dioxide, that the vast majority of scientists studying the issue say are causing global climate change.

Businesses interested in leasing the land, and paying for and maintaining a solar installation, can complete a request for proposal at mndot.gov/consult . Click on P/T Notices on the top menu bar.

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