Solar for Community Resilience and Local Co-benefits

Improving drinking water quality with solar energy on DWSMAs in Minnesota

Rural communities face legacy issues with drinking water due to the long history of agricultural land uses using nitrogen-based fertilizers. Agriculture was and will continue to be the economic foundation for these communities, but it comes with risks and consequences, particularly from historical conventional agricultural practices.

The primary vector for nitrates in drinking water is agricultural production in groundwater recharge areas and along hydrologic flows supplying drinking water systems. Lowering drinking water nitrate levels through treatment or drilling new wells can cost millions of dollars.

The burgeoning clean energy industry, particularly solar energy, can be an economic asset in helping to change agricultural practices in groundwater recharge areas and address the nitrate problem in rural America.

Millions of people who live in rural and suburban communities in the Midwest face unacceptable levels of nitrates in drinking water, which pose a severe health risk for infants and increase the risk of health problems and cancer in adults.

For example, over 10 percent of the private wells sampled by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) have nitrate levels above the US Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for unsafe water (10 milligrams per liter). MDA has mapped those areas of the state where groundwater vulnerability requires nitrogen fertilizer restrictions in the fall. Many public drinking water systems in rural and suburban Minnesota have elevated nitrate levels or have been identified by MDH as highly vulnerable to contamination.

By replacing agricultural land uses in recharge areas with a solar plus conservation dual land use, communities can leverage the growing solar energy market to reduce nitrates, avoid expensive water treatment, protect economic value for rural landowners, and create local habitat co-benefits.

What is a DWSMA?

Drinking water supply management areas (DWMSAs) are designated protection areas around the wellheads of public drinking water supplies where rainwater and surface water recharge the drinking water aquifer. DWSMAs are clearly defined geographic areas that MDH evaluates for risk of public water contamination.

Potential sources of contamination include surface water runoff from surrounding land uses, agricultural inputs that could infiltrate groundwater supplies, and chemical or harmful spills that can affect the communities’ drinking water supplies.

Host communities will benefit from the clean energy future

Equitably decarbonizing our energy system will require both a substantial investment in our country’s renewable energy resources and ensuring that this investment serves the needs and priorities of the communities being asked to host that investment. Solar energy resources are ubiquitous, carbon-free, and among the least costly ways to generate electricity. However, clean energy development should not replicate the mistakes of our conventional energy system that left a legacy of environmental damage and human health problems.

This project demonstrates that careful solar siting and system design can create value for host communities and even resolve intractable dilemmas, as is seen in the nitrate water risks faced by much of rural America. 

GPI works to build value for host communities in the emerging clean energy economy, including by supporting communities in realizing co-benefits from distributed and large-scale renewable energy projects. Contact us for more information on how your community can benefit from participating in the clean energy transformation: [email protected].

What can we do about it?

The Great Plains Institute (GPI), working with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and other partners, continues to explore the benefits of solar energy for drinking water. Solar development offers a unique solution for protecting wellhead protection areas. Environmentally sensitive solar development can limit nitrate pollution, create a new tax base, provide habitat, and help meet clean energy goals.

 

Minnesota Department of Health Logo

The DWSMA Solar Initiative

For several years, GPI has been convening groups in and around Minnesota to discuss solar development as a tool for protecting or restoring local and state ecosystem services and natural resources. Most of the land below a solar farm is vegetated open space that can be used for conservation ground covers such as deep-rooted grasses and pollinator- and habitat-friendly vegetation.

GPI partnered with MDH, the Minnesota Rural Water Association (MRWA), and Emmons & Olivier Resources Inc. (EOR), along with other state agencies, environmental advocates, and energy and solar industry stakeholders to discuss how solar development can protect groundwater and restore nitrate-challenged drinking water supplies.

DWSMAs present a significant solar development opportunity with over 1.3 million acres of land in Minnesota. DWSMAs designated as vulnerable to nitrate contamination could, in theory, host more than 14,000 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity, even to provide up to 20 percent of Minnesota’s electric energy needs.

MDH has spent years attempting to reduce conventional agricultural production on vulnerable DWSMAs. However, most DWSMAs are privately owned, and much of the area is prime farmland.

Large-scale solar that meets Minnesota’s habitat-friendly standard offers a way to take DWSMA land out of agricultural production at scale (1,000 acres rather than 40–80 acres at a time) while affording an improved financial return to the landowner.

Replacing nitrate-producing agriculture with pollinator-friendly solar can also bring improved health and safety to the community and substantial cost savings to the state and rural water providers, who will not have to drill new wells or build additional treatment facilities for nitrate removal.

DWSMA Solar Phase 1

In 2023, MDH, EOR, and GPI reconvened stakeholders and state agency partners to establish a project steering committee to evaluate opportunities and barriers to DWSMA solar and identify potential pilot or demonstration projects.

The committee considered and prioritized existing opportunities for solar development on DWSMAs, explored potential energy off-takers for the solar development, and identified high-nitrate watersheds and potential pilot project sites. The project cataloged electric interconnection standards and opportunities, considered solar market conditions, and identified existing programs and policy initiatives that affect DWSMA solar opportunities.

DWSMA Solar Phase 2

In the spring of 2024, MDH was awarded an Energy Futures grant by the US Department of Energy (DE-FOA 00002870). With this grant, under the guidance of MDH, GPI will lead a multi-jurisdictional team of four rural communities, other state agencies, community-focused NGOs, and a technical consultant team to develop innovative clean energy plans for rural communities.

The plans will focus on proactively developing community- and large-scale solar energy projects located on drinking water recharge that also bring other local co-benefits to rural communities. Co-benefits include mitigating nitrate levels in local drinking water, providing energy resilience benefits for the water utility, and prioritizing economic benefits for local businesses and workers.

The initiative will address the needs of low-income, disadvantaged, or historically underrepresented populations typical of rural areas in the Midwest. A primary focus will be documenting the nitrate reduction opportunity, including how much agricultural land needs to be converted to a conservation/solar dual land use to reduce nitrate levels over time, cost savings to the community from using the conservation/solar tool, and the timeframe for seeing material results in nitrate levels. The study also includes an engineering assessment of how local energy resources can be used by the water utility to improve resilience and lower costs.

The community energy plans will proactively identify solar development areas within local wellhead protection areas to do the following:

  • Provide affordable and resilient energy to drinking water critical infrastructure.
  • Work with local landowners to convert land uses in vulnerable wellhead protection areas (DWSMAs) from agriculture to solar plus conservation to reduce legacy nitrate contamination.
  • Create community benefits plans or model agreements to be integrated with large-scale solar development to ensure solar projects that create economic, environmental, and health benefits for the host community.
  • Demonstrate how large-scale solar development can be deployed across the state to benefit host communities facing legacy nitrate issues and high energy costs.

The project will engage four host communities through public workshops, focus groups, or other outreach to identify how solar development can be community-focused, serving both clean energy needs and community priorities. Direct engagement of landowners, water and energy utilities, agricultural businesses, community residents, and other local stakeholders will take place over one year, starting in 2025. The project will conclude by helping those host communities that are interested in implementing the plan move into a follow-up phase where solar projects can be developed.

Want to learn more?

To learn more about our work to advance solar and other renewable energy technologies, visit GPI’s Renewable Energy page.