Sustainability and Energy Action Plan

APPENDIX XII: MERLIN LANDFILL SOLAR CALCULATIONS GRANTS PASS SUSTAINABILITY AND ENERGY ACTION PLAN MERLIN LANDFILL SOLAR CALCULATIONS The City of Grants Pass owns two former landfill sites which provide an opportunity for development of two solar power stations. The Merlin Landfill site is much larger, but the grid is more limited. The total area under City ownership at the Merlin landfill site is more than 300 acres. Recently Pacific Power conducted a preliminary analysis of both the Foothill site and the Merlin Landfill site and reported the following: Because the load limit for the grid at this site is 1.7 MW, this large size could not be fully utilized without investing in grid upgrades. Without such upgrades, the maximum amount for this location to produce would be about 1.7 MW. As a rule of thumb, 5 acres are required to produce 1 MW of electricity from a solar photovoltaic array, assuming that every kilowatt of solar electricity production will require about 100 square feet of space. Therefore, the size of a 1.7 MW solar installation would require only 8 -10 acres. 162