City gets $3 million in State funding to support solar at Butterworth

City gets $3 million in State funding to support solar at Butterworth

Published on September 23, 2024

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - City and State officials recently held an event at Butterworth landfill, a closed and fully remediated U.S. superfund site in the heart of the city, where State Representatives Carol Glanville, Rachel Hood and Phil Skaggs ceremoniously presented Mayor Rosalynn Bliss and City Manager Mark Washington with a $3 million "check" to fund the necessary infrastructure to transport solar-produced electricity from Butterworth to the City's primary circuit.

The City has worked for more than a decade to install solar panels at Butterworth, a 180 to 190-acre closed landfill that closed in the early 1970s and placed on the U.S. Superfund National Priorities List in 1986. The EPA fully remediated the site in 2000. Since that time, the landfill has been maintained as an open grass area with walking paths along the perimeter and an access road through the middle, which provides public safety access to the river. The EPA commissioned a solar reuse assessment in 2013 that identified three beneficial reuses for the site: leave it as a grass field, turn it into parking or install solar panels.

The City is pursuing the third possibility as a best use option, in alignment with its health and environment strategic priorities. The site would supply energy to the City directly to power Behind the Meter (BTM) municipal operations such as street lighting and traffic signals and contribute toward its goals of an 85 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction and 100 percent renewable energy goal for municipal operations.

Mayor Bliss said the State funding is critical to the future of the project as costs of development (which are higher due to the site characteristics and Superfund designation) make it prohibitive to do this project without assistance.

She accepted the $3 million check saying, "I want to thank the State of Michigan, especially our legislators from Grand Rapids for all their support of this project. I've been on the Commission for 19 years and it seems like we've been talking about putting solar on this space for all 19 years. This is a start. We still have a whole lot more that we can do on this space. It is a very complicated process and that it is why it is so critical that we have the support from our State partners to make this happen. I want to thank them for having a vision of environmental sustainability in Michigan and pushing that down to the local level and supporting projects like this."

State Representative Carol Glanville praised her colleagues in the State legislature stating, "I want to thank my colleagues who were a part of this, I am proud to have worked with members of the legislature across Kent County to bring this critical funding home to the 84th District. This project has been the vision of our City leaders for well before my time, including Mayors George Heartwell and Bliss. I want to thank them and our local partners for their advocacy, persistence and patience in bringing this project to fruition. It is a true testament to the innovative spirit that has always been a part of the culture of our city. Choosing a solar array is the best use of this site. It will help create new jobs and help lower energy costs."

State Representative Phil Skaggs thanked City leadership for, "not quitting on this project and moving forward with a real vision for a sustainable Grand Rapids. It's extraordinarily important to see elected officials and the administration work so closely together to bring that vision to phase 1 reality."

State Representative Rachel Hood expressed her excitement in getting to this point in the project to make the space more valuable for the people of Grand Rapids and the State of Michigan. She also said, "We have more work to do to make solar here possible. There are bills yet that need to be passed in the legislature that will help stand up the finance structures that are necessary. Each have been introduced for several terms and are now ripe for action. As the chair of the subcommittee on Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, I was proud to be able to make this $3 million investment in this budget cycle."

Finally, Washington thanked the Michigan delegation for its support of the project saying, "it really takes a lot of effort to make something like this happen. The $3 million given by the State will serve as the tipping point to make this transformational work out there powering our LED street lights, our parking ramps, traffic signals and critical public safety infrastructure."

The planned Butterworth Solar project's BTM component will support the City of Grand Rapids' Strategic Goals to:

• Supply municipal operations with 100% renewable energy by FY2025 and annually thereafter.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated from municipal operations by 85% by 2030 (as compared to a 2008 baseline) and achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.
• Reduce year-over-year energy consumption by City facilities, utilities (including the Primary Circuit) and fleet.
• Achieve a community-wide science-based target of 62.8% per capita greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2030 (as compared to a 2019 baseline) and 100% by 2050.

The planned solar field will have the following major features:

• 2MW of Solar Generation - supporting the City's primary circuit - Directly benefiting municipal infrastructure. Renewable electrification of the City's Primary Circuit sets a foundation for the City's broader vision to power its facilities 24/7 with renewables via distributed solar and storage. This project provides a foundation for future connectivity, BESS and expansion.
• Local generation and local use - this project will be built inside the City of Grand Rapids, and the benefits of the project will directly benefit the local community, both environmentally and economically.
• Beneficial re-use of an EPA Superfund site - The redevelopment of an EPA superfund site for the benefit of the local community that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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