CEP Renewables solar project remediates severely contaminated land

CEP Renewables has started construction on its 19 MWDC Foul Rift solar project located in White Township, New Jersey. The project is being developed on a brownfield in Warren County, an environmentally impaired site, that had been the home to a composting facility for nearly three decades.

Prior to the cessation of operations, the facility had a long history of violations received from New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). CEP’s development of this project will remediate this site while also providing clean energy, pollinator habitats and greater tax revenue for the local community. This fixed-tilt, bifacial solar module project is expected to reach commercial operation by September 2024.

“This project is the perfect example of the use of the renewable energy subsidy to not only reduce the regional carbon footprint, but also remediate environmental damages that would not have otherwise been addressed,” said Chris Ichter, executive VP at CEP Renewables. “We are pleased to have been able to leverage our prior experience on similarly challenging landfill and brownfield solar projects to develop a successful public-private partnership with White Township that will positively impact generations to come.”

An extensive environmental investigation at the project site indicated that the soils were contaminated with metals including arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In total, the investigation identified 92 separate notices of environmental violations from NJDEP. In order to bring the site into compliance with NJDEP regulations, CEP removed the remaining berm of compost and waste materials and worked with NJDEP to successfully resolve the remaining violations and terminate the solid waste permit.

As part of its partnership with White Township, in exchange for certain interconnection easement rights, CEP also agreed to create a porous pavement walking path throughout the township’s recreational fields. This is a project that the township had been planning to build, but remained unfulfilled due to lack of funding.

In addition to turning an environmentally hazardous site into a revenue generating asset, the Foul Rift project also contributes to New Jersey maintaining its ranking as the number one U.S. state for installed solar capacity per square mile.

News item from CEP Renewables