An agreement with American Electric Power OnSite Partners will “transform a contaminated East Main Street site” in Newark, Ohio, into a 3,312-solar module energy field, the Newark Advocate reports. The city owns the land, but AEP Onsite Partners “will own the facility and sell electricity back to the city,” according to the article. The electricity generated will supply “about 30 percent of the power needs for the city’s adjacent wastewater treatment plant.” Dovetail Solar “will design and install the equipment”; Dovetail President Al Frasz said due to the cost of solar manufacturing decreasing so much over the past several years, “[w]e can get more energy in the same square footage, which helps the economics.” Newark Development Director Mark Mauter said due to the serious limitations on what the city can do with the contaminated site, the solar field is the “best possible outcome,” and because AEP will own the equipment, “[t]here’s no risk of taxpayers’ dollars.”
Contaminated Newark site will transform into solar energy field
