Town-Wide Solar Feasibility Assessment

gzachris — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 17:03:34 +0000

Amherst, MA

gzachris Mon, 01/22/2024 - 12:03

Challenge

The Town of Amherst has set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets and needs to develop additional renewable energy generation to meet those targets. Given the need to develop solar and protect open space, the Town wanted to better understand community sentiment surrounding solar development, systematically understand solar feasibility town-wide, and produce estimates of current land use areas to later generate solar development goals.

Solution

Using publicly available data GZA developed a fine-scale data layer characterizing solar feasibility throughout town based on four criteria:

Distance to the nearest 3-phase distribution line
Current capacity of the nearest 3-phase distribution line
Slope
Aspect

Land uses such as wetlands, roadways and rights-of-way, and properties with conservation restrictions were removed from the analysis to present a realistic characterization of the town. GZA developed this mapping layer and presented it at several committee meetings to engage and inform citizens about the process and considerations.

To help the town understand overall sentiment, GZA conducted an online survey about various solar development types across a variety of land uses. GZA hosted two in-person workshops. To broadly engage the community, workshop and survey notices were provided via direct mailings, fliers, and social and traditional media outlets and materials were available in multiple languages.

Benefit

GZA’s knowledge of available databases, land use regulations, and solar developer physical constraints helped the Client characterize solar feasibility town-wide in a systematic way for future use by residents, developers, and town officials. The map and its data can be used to generate estimates of solar development capacity by land type in coordination with the survey results to balance residents�� solar preferences with the need to quickly develop renewable energy.

GIS
Custom mapping and data analysis
Virtual and in-person community outreach
Hosted public workshops and presentations
Hosted online survey
Employed social media, traditional media, direct mailings, and fliers
Translation services

Massachusetts

Government

Land Use and Environmental Planning

Interactive Solar Site Selection ��Ϸ��bApp

gzadan — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:42:11 +0000

Interactive Solar Site Selection ��Ϸ��bApp gzadan Thu, 08/31/2023 - 10:42

Challenge

A solar developer with significant success developing rooftop solar arrays in the New Jersey Community Solar Program sought GZA’s assistance to identify potentially suitable landfills, brownfields, or other known contaminated sites to expand into ground-mounted solar arrays. With over 13,500 potential sites in New Jersey, the developer knew they needed an automated way to narrow their list.

Solution

Using publicly available data, GZA developed a GIS-based solar site suitability model as an ESRI ��Ϸ��b App. The App provided both pre-sorted and filtered sites based on the Client and NJ Community Solar preferences for parcels that were at least 15 acres after removing:

Steep slopes
��Ϸ��tland and vernal pool areas
Rare species areas
Contained some impervious cover

The ��Ϸ��bApp also provided the Client the ability to add additional filters themselves and select and sort by data attributes such as municipalities, counties, or utility service areas. The ��Ϸ��bApp provided a calculated distance to the nearest substation along with a direct link to the property card, and because these are primarily contaminated sites, a link to the NJ Dataminer website where the site cleanup records could be accessed.

Benefit

GZA’s knowledge of available databases and data analysis expertise helped the Client quickly cull a list of 13,500 properties to 432 sites likely to be suitable for solar development. The ��Ϸ��bApp provided a user-friendly interface that could be customized to ask and answer new questions about the data to more fully investigate a potential site before contacting a property owner or manager.

GIS
ESRI Story Map
Data analysis
Local solar program knowledge
User friendly app and database provided to client
Efficient analysis saved client significant effort, time, and cost

New Jersey

Energy

Data Management, Analytics and Visualization Solutions

Land Use and Environmental Planning

GIS

Town-Wide Solar Feasibility Assessment

Challenge

Solution

Benefit

Interactive Solar Site Selection ������Ϸ����bApp

Challenge

Solution

Benefit

Interactive Solar Site Selection ��Ϸ��bApp