The Dayton city commission approved a 30-year solar power purchase agreement earlier this month for the city’s first utility-scale solar power facility, which is to be built on a former brownfield site.
The five megawatt, 25-acre facility is planned to produce over one third of the electricity needed to power one of the city’s water treatment plants. It sits adjacent to the Miami wellfield.
“It’s the right thing to do for the environment and the right thing to do for being fiscally responsible,” said Commissioner Darryl Fairchild at the March 5 city commission meeting. “And I hope it can demonstrate to others what is possible.”
The facility will sit atop the site of the former Sherwin Williams warehouse, which was destroyed by a fire in 1987. Now, it looks like a grassy field. But following the fire, the site had to be cleaned up because chemicals called volatile organic compounds (or VOCs) were emitted into the air and soil. This will be the first reuse of the site since then.
“You can't just put anything on (it) because of the history of the site. So that's why solar was a good option,” said Meg Maloney, Dayton’s sustainability director.
VOCs are a class of gaseous chemicals including benzene and formaldehyde and can be dangerous to human health. Maloney estimates the cleanup was deemed complete by 1993.
City officials thought carefully about the construction of this site, Maloney said. It took four years to actually land on the current plans.
“We wanted to ensure a) the project would save money but b) maximize—how much solar can we build and how much money can we save through the building of that solar,” she said.
The solar panels will send power through a nearby power substation, which is connected to the water treatment plant.
IGS Energy, with which the city signed the agreement, will cover the cost of construction and maintenance for the facility. City documents estimate that cost will be $10 million in the first year. Maloney said it should be operational by 2027. At that same March 5 meeting, the city commission also approved the construction of a 63 kilowatt solar power facility at the new police station the city is constructing.
This isn’t the only brownfield site the city’s hoping to make use of. Maloney said the city is looking into the feasibility of reusing the former Valleycrest Superfund site as a solar facility.
The city of Dayton declared a climate emergency in 2021, where the city commissioners adopted a commitment to use 100% renewable energy sources by 2050 and obtain a 100% electric or other renewable-powered vehicle fleet by 2035.
