Solar for the City of Northfield
Citywide Renewable Energy Potentials Study
The City of Northfield was awarded a 2019 Seed Grant from the Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) for Solar For The City of Northfield. The project’s focus is on exploring city wide solar pv potential as well as the potential for on-site solar energy and achieving Net Zero Energy for the City’s 10 primary municipal buildings. The City engaged paleBLUEdot llc, a Minnesota Climate and Renewable Energy consultancy to complete this project. The report is viewable, and summarized below.
Click here to download the report.
City Wide Solar Potential
The study looked at the total rooftop generation as well as “optimized” potential throughout the City of Northfield. The total energy generation represents the reasonably feasible potential for rooftop solar pv generation based on applying solar pv to all available rooftops within the City and the capacity was calculated based on satellite data. It is appropriate, however, to modify the total generation to reflect the likely total capacity that is reasonably cost efficient installation – that modified generation potential is the “optimized” potential for rooftop solar in Northfield. The total Optimized Generation Capacity for rooftop solar in Northfield is estimated to be 48,702,495 KWH annually.
The study also explored the potential market absorption – the likely rate of installing solar installations within the City over the coming years. Three scenarios were identified:
Scenario A: Based on current city share of Statewide install trends (higher than average number of arrays, lower than average KW installed per-capita)
Scenario B: Increasing city share to match Statewide install trends per-capita
Scenario C: Illustration of adoption needed to meet City’s Climate Action Plan goals (10% distributed solar by 2030, 20% by 2040)
Solar for City Facilities
This report provides a detailed solar concept development, detailed assessments, opinion of probable cost, potential energy generation schedule, and potential financial performance for each of the primary government facilities within the City of Northfield. These preliminary concepts are intended to provide an initial understanding of potential for each site. Additional feasibility and assessment of sites with a low benefit to cost ratio may offer opportunities to identify more cost effective approaches for those sites.
The report provides recommended master plan implementation priorities for all government facilities reviewed in Section 4. This solar implementation master plan looks to guide the City to 100% renewable energy for all City facilities through the application of on-site arrays, community solar subscriptions, power purchase agreements, and purchase of renewable energy credits.
The solar feasibility and recommended implementation priority for each site is shown below:
Additional Solar Information
Below are links to additional information on the benefits of solar: