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Table 4-2 Opportunities Associated with Developing Solar on CLP Sites <br />40PIM1141 <br />CLP sites represent large amounts of available land that currently do not have a higher value use. These sites could <br />replace agricultural land as solar development options. <br />Production of renewable energy and corresponding reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the power <br />generation sector. <br />Support for short-term construction and long-term maintenance jobs. <br />Electricity to serve on -site load. <br />Opportunity for local developers to continue solar development in Minnesota. <br />Good use for otherwise marginal/impaired land, beneficial reuse. <br />Solar energy could help local government meet their renewable energy/greenhouse gas reduction goals. <br />Energy production is a potential source of stable revenue. <br />Solar energy could be a community asset/amenity. <br />Solar energy can provide various grid services including peak shaving. Peak shaving reduces the load on the local <br />transmission and distribution grid during times of peak electricity use. <br />Development of solar on CLP sites could be an opportunity to create streamlined/standardized program for leasing <br />and selling power. <br />Minnesota could show leadership in brownfield solar development. <br />Solar energy could be a source of tax revenue. <br />Solar development has the potential to support pollinator -friendly and other natural habitat development. <br />4.1 Common Key Barriers to All Sites and Potential Actions to <br />Address Those Barriers <br />Based on the July 13, 2020 focus group discussion and participant feedback, the key barriers common to <br />solar development at all CLP sites are uncertainty about costs to connect to nearby transmission or <br />distribution systems, uncertainty related to site suitability and CLP program responsibilities , and increased <br />construction costs related to the unique features of closed landfill caps. These, of course, do not represent <br />all the barriers; however, these barriers were repeatedly mentioned by stakeholders as key barriers that <br />were common to all CLP sites and would need to be addressed in order to enable solar development on <br />MN CLP sites. In the balance of Section 4.1 we will describe each of these barriers in more detail and <br />recommend some actions to address these barriers. <br />Uncertainty About Costs to Connect to Nearby Transmission or Distribution Systems. We learned <br />from our stakeholders the cost to connect to existing infrastructure is a significant part of the total cost to <br />construct solar generating systems. These costs are directly related to several important variables: <br />distance from the solar generating equipment to the existing electrical infrastructure, availability of a <br />substation, existing equipment in a substation, electrical capacity of the substation and associated <br />transmission/distribution system and permitting and interconnect costs. Publicly available GIS data, <br />showing locations of transmission and distribution infrastructure (wires and substations), gave us a means <br />of calculating the distance to local electrical infrastructure from our CLP sites. Generally, as a rule of <br />17 <br />