Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and other officials gathered at the site of an old landfill Wednesday to break ground on a new solar field.
It will convert part of the former Emerson Street landfill into a solar-production facility that will help power City Hall. Officials say it will also divert more than two thousand tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
The project received more than $800,000 in state funding. It’s part of efforts under state programs which require that half of the electricity generated in New York come from renewable sources by 2030.
The new solar field will hold more than 7,800 solar panels on a 7-acre site.
The project is being built by a Colorado company, AES Distributed Energy and the city of Rochester will then buy electricity from that company at a rate that will save an estimated $80,000 a year. The company is working with a subcontractor, Solar Liberty of Buffalo.
The electricity will be used to help power city hall and the Environmental Services Operations Center on Mount Read Boulevard.
