From defense site to delivering solar power

Nautilus Solar Energy has started operations at the first solar project on a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) in New York, transforming what had been viewed as a liability into a significant 2.8 MW solar asset.

By Tony Kryzanowski

New Jersey-based community solar developer Nautilus Solar Energy has achieved a breakthrough by completing the first solar farm on a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) in the U.S., in Albany County, New York.

The 2.8 megawatt (MW) community solar project on the privately-held FUDS location in the community of Guilderland is the first of what could become a massive opportunity in untapped brownfield solar development in the United States. The site was formerly the landfill and burn pit for the Schenectady Army Depot-Voorheesville Area, which was pivotal in receiving, storing, and transmitting military supplies during World II and the Korean War.

The success achieved by Nautilus Solar Energy demonstrates that it is possible to develop solar on these sensitive sites, with patience and the right approach.

According to the American military, as of September 2021, there were 5,400 FUDS locations of various sizes and shapes throughout the U.S.—and of those sites, 3,800 had been remediated.

Rupal Bain, Senior Manager Structuring at Nautilus Solar Energy, says that the company identified the Albany County site through its internal search system.

“We knew that both the federal and state governments offered extra incentives for brownfield solar sites so we decided that this would be a win-win and an important project for the community,” she says. The fact that it was located within a state-identified disadvantaged community was also an attraction since development within these communities is a priority for New York as the state expands its renewable energy portfolio.

Generally, solar power generation on remediated landfill sites has proven to be a good match since these sites often have little to no other potential commercial use and the Guilderland site fit that description. Over time, the industry has developed non-ground penetrating methods to install solar farms on these sites, typically including the use of concrete ballasts. Situating solar farms on landfills also typically generates annual, long term lease payments on otherwise unoccupied land, either for the local municipality or a private land owner.

“It’s a great use of the land in Guilderland that couldn’t be used otherwise to generate clean power, and in our particular case with community solar, it also benefits the local community through green energy and lower energy prices,” says Steve Dzubak, Senior Project Manager at Nautilus Solar Energy. He shepherded the project through its construction stage while Bain worked primarily to gain project approval.

Being involved in the project at its earliest stage, Bain describes the initial reaction to the project proposal from the community and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers— which is responsible for ongoing environmental monitoring of this FUDS location—as “mixed”.

“While the town welcomed the idea of having a solar farm in the industrial area, it was concerned about the solar farm being visible from certain vantage points affecting the characteristics of the neighborhood,” she says.

Furthermore, the Army Corps of Engineers liked the initial proposal of using the landfill, but warned the developer that it would be a challenge to convince both them and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) that building the solar farm on top of the landfill cap wouldn’t have any impact on it.

“Getting the structural calculations approved by the Army Corps was one of the biggest challenges we faced in permitting this project,” Bain says.

It took Nautilus Solar Energy two years to gain approval to build on this FUDS location in New York, which also presented a number of design challenges for the developer, supporting Dzubak’s view that each potential FUDS location must be evaluated on its own merit.

The Guilderland project is divided into three separate and narrow sections to avoid adjacent wetlands, ponds, railroads and commercial buildings. That’s in addition to the site being a remediated Army landfill. On the positive side, the entire site was relatively flat.

Despite these challenges, the value of the completion of the Guilderland solar farm can’t be understated as the finished project has delivered multiple dividends.

First, power generated by the site provides cheaper power from a renewable energy source to area subscribers. The solar farm is providing electricity to over 260 households while offsetting the carbon emissions produced by 600 vehicles annually and helping the State of New York meet its mandated goal of achieving 70 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. Nautilus Solar Energy works entirely in the community solar sector, building projects typically in the 5 MW or less category.

	In addition to being located on a remediated Army landfill, the Nautilus Solar Energy project in Guilderland, New York had to be divided into three separate and narrow sections to avoid adjacent wetlands, ponds, railroads and commercial buildings.

Secondly, the solar project provides lease revenue to the private landowner from a parcel of land that up until recently had little revenue generation potential because as a former Army landfill, it had no other obvious potential commercial use.

And thirdly, project construction supported the local economy and continues to provide full-time jobs in electrical maintenance and site vegetation management.

Now that the project is complete, Dzubak says the feedback from all parties has been positive.

“From my experience, everyone involved in the delivery of this project views it as a positive development for land that otherwise had very few potential uses, if any at all,” he says. “Solar is a great fit for it so I would call it a quintessential win-win for everyone.”

But he adds that without a doubt, the two years that it took to gain local and Army Corps of Engineers approval for the project was the most amount of time spent on developing it.

The Corps is the institution that remediated and continues to monitor test wells for environmental contamination on the landfill and burn pit site that operated from 1941 to 1969 and also contains some hazardous waste. The fragmented parcel of land is now owned by the Northeastern Industrial Park with a permanent easement on it placed by the Army Corps of Engineers for ongoing oversight.

Dzubak says that Nautilus Solar Energy would consider other projects on FUDS locations if the opportunity should present itself.

“There is absolutely a great incentive for us to build more of these on brownfields and we would love to do so,” he says. “The uniqueness of the Guilderland site is not so much that it is a brownfield or a landfill but that it is a FUDS site. So the long development and involvement of the Army Corps is what makes it really unique. I think there will absolutely be more of these in the future, and there is certainly going to be more solar development on brownfields because that is ongoing.”

The 2.8 megawatt community solar project on the privately-held FUDS location in the community of Guilderland, NY, is the first of what could become a massive opportunity in untapped brownfield solar development in the United States. According to the American military, as of September 2021, there were 5,400 FUDS locations of various sizes and shapes throughout the U.S.

As stated earlier, the biggest Army Corps of Engineers concern was ground disturbance of the protective engineered cap, but what Nautilus Solar Energy brought to the project was significant experience developing solar projects on remediated landfill sites in various locales throughout the U.S.

As is common with solar farms on former landfill sites, the anchoring system for the entire racking system used for the three sections of the Guilderland solar array consisted of non-ground penetrating concrete ballasts. And because ballasts were used, Dzubak says that a fixed-tilt racking system was the easiest option, though a tracking system would have delivered more yield, because all the infrastructure had to be above grade. Tracking systems need to be driven into the ground.

AUI Partners LLC was the EPC contractor on the project and Nautilus Solar Energy was familiar with them, having worked with the company on other projects, although this was their first partnership on a landfill location.

Also during construction, the EPC was restricted in the type and size of equipment that they could use on the site to comply with ground pressure limits on the cap, and they also had to avoid damaging any existing infrastructure, such as the monitoring wells. So that typically meant the use of tracked versus wheeled equipment. The Army Corps of Engineers weren’t on site monitoring construction on a daily basis, but they did visit the site on three occasions and were part of the overall permit close-out process to ensure overall compliance.

Construction began in October 2023 and the project began producing power commercially in November 2024, with power transmitted to the National Grid distribution network and with compensation determined on a net metered basis.

North Carolina-based DCE Solar supplied the prefabricated concrete ballasts with posts as well as the fixed-tilt racking system for the project, while Adani Solar supplied the bifacial solar panels, and Chint Power Systems (CPS) provided the 125 kW inverters. Civil engineering on the site was provided by Colliers Engineering Inc. and electrical engineering was provided by Harold Hart & Associates Inc.

Construction began with a compacted gravel pad installed for each concrete ballast, placement of the concrete ballast and then the construction of the racking system, installation of the solar panels, and then the electrical wiring to connect individual panels as well as the three sites, including connection to the grid.

“In essence, the major difference between this and a typical solar site is that nothing can go into the ground, you can’t bury any conduit, you can’t trench, and you can’t drive piles for trackers, put in earth screws or anything like that,” says Dzubak.

All of the electrical wiring was installed using above ground cable trays, which is typical of any landfill solar development.

Nautilus Solar Energy has a number of other landfill solar projects in the pipeline in New York and elsewhere and, as mentioned, would be interested in additional projects on FUDS locations.

Q1 2025