The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority will install a six-acre solar array on the former Hartford landfill by October, authorities say.
The solar array is part of an $11.6 million contract with the E.T. & L. Corp. of Massachusetts to cap the 96-acre landfill — visible on the east side of I-91 and reachable from Jennings Road — sometime in 2014, including installing the solar panels by Oct. 1.
The facility first opened in 1940 and stopped receiving waste in 2008.
The six-acre solar project will generate about one megawatt of electricity, enough to power 1,000 Connecticut homes. The size of the project makes it one of the top 15 largest solar landfill projects in the country, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The CRRA solar project was one of 68 proposals to receive Zero-emissions Renewable Energy Credit, or ZREC, funding from electric utility Connecticut Light & Power under the state $1 billion credit program launched in 2012. CRRA will receive 11 cents for kilowatt hour of electricity generated.
The landfill also features a methane-gas collection system that captures the emissions from the decomposing garbage to use in power plants. Connecticut also considers landfill gas to be a renewable source of energy.
