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Brownfields
Redevelopment with Welcome to the new brownfields and clean energy web site. We are excited to combine two fields of expertise at the Institute in order to promote brownfields redevelopment with clean onsite energy options. Once remediated to EPA standards, brownfields sites still face redevelopment problems. These include energy constraints, power quality and reliability issues, and clean air issues. By integrating clean onsite energy sources in redevelopment, these problems can be answered. Download the "Site Selection Manual with Criteria List" to determine if clean onsite energy may be a good development tool for your brownfield site. This reference tool was designed with planners, developers, and policymakers in mind. This list can aid in making an initial determination whether onsite energy is a good fit with a brownfield site to be redeveloped. Below is background information on both brownfields and clean onsite energy with links to more details from the Northeast-Midwest Institute and EPA. Also below, a particular development scheme called "Power Parks" is featured, including details on the Chicago West Pullman project where a power park was developed on a brownfield site. For more informaiton, contact Susan Freedman with the Institute. Brownfields and On-Site Energy Resources The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines brownfields as "abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination." Brownfields can be redeveloped for a wide variety of purposes. Successful redevelopment efforts have turned brownfields into retail sites, light industrial facilities, office parks, waterfront promenades, parks, schools, market-rate and low-income housing, stadiums, and transit centers. Clean onsite energy resources include distributed power, heating, cooling and related technologies and electric and thermal storage and demand management. They include energy-efficient technologies and renewable energy applications located at or near the point of use (on-site energy). One DER technology, combined heat and power (CHP), produces both electricity and steam from a single fuel source in a facility located near the consumer. These efficient systems recover and utilize waste heat and save fuel that would otherwise be needed to produce heat or steam in a separate unit. CHP systems can provide electricity and thermal needs like heating and cooling. CHP systems can reach energy efficiency levels in excess of 80%, well above the 33% average for conventional electrical generation technologies. Even the newest and most efficient electricity-only generation is 55% efficient at best. CHP systems achieve greater efficiency because they:
The use of combined heat and power for onsite generation can enhance the redevelopment of brownfield sites because it:
The National Energy Policy Report, issued in May of 2001, recommends that the President direct the EPA Administrator to work with local and state governments to promote the use of well-designed CHP and other clean energy generation at brownfield sites (Section 4-11). Insights into Brownfields The brownfield issue is plagued by a lack of quantitative data. 450,000 is the speculative, but generally agreed upon, figure for the total number of brownfields in the country. This figure includes former industrial sites, abandoned gas stations, dry cleaners, and commercial operations. However, no one knows how many brownfields are in each state, what percentage are rural and urban, how much brownfields make local economies suffer, or how much their redevelopment boosts those economies. We do know that strategic brownfield redevelopment can clean up environmental hazards, remove neighborhood eyesores, create jobs, boost tax revenue, provide housing, and promote general economic health in local communities of all sizes. Redevelopment can produce win-win scenarios for both the economy and the environment. Energy Security, Grid Reliability, & Environmental Benefits of CHP Combined heat and power (CHP) technology is a positive solution to U.S. energy security issues.
The local nature of CHP reduces
Barriers to Brownfield Reuse Developers and investors, cautious of environmental liability, have shied away from brownfield sites. Contaminated properties, which are subject to many environmental regulations and procedures, also are vulnerable to costly construction delays. Pollution concerns have led developers to pass up opportunities in urban centers for ones in rural and suburban areas (a.k.a. greenfields) where land is perceived to be less expensive and free from unknown liability. If these barriers to brownfield reuse are to be overcome, site reusers need funds to perform site assessment, funds to develop a cleanup plan, and funds to do the cleanup. Adding CHP systems to the equation could make brownfield redevelopment more enticing for financial institutions and developers, increase tax revenue for a locality, attract businesses and residents back to a revitalized city, and provide environmentally-friendly energy source for all.
Power Parks are an integrated "systems approach" to delivering power when and where it is needed. These systems are designed to be more energy efficient and environmentally sound by utilizing far less fuel to generate the same or better power than any previous central power generation or delivery system. Some compare this change to that experienced in the computer industry with the transition from solely relying on main frames to greater reliance on laptops, or with energy, from solely relying on central power plants to a greater reliance on DER technologies. (View diagram of a Power Park) A distributed energy resource (DER) portfolio often found in the Power Park design concept includes both renewable and fossil energy generation, storage and energy efficiency technologies. Many of these innovative energy technologies alone and in hybrid configurations (typically pairing an intermittent renewable with conventional generation), are found in applications, such as combined heat and power (CHP), supplying power, both thermal and electrical, in grid and off-grid markets. Developing old or abandoned industrial sites is a critical "smart growth" strategy for economic development in urban areas. Smarter use of resources in expanding suburban areas is also critical. In order to provide energy consumers valued-added solutions, attract new industry and create jobs, there is an essential need to provide reliable, energy efficient power while maintaining a sustainable environmental quality of life. Power Parks could play an integral role in a restructured energy marketplace. Customers demand solutions based on power quality and reliability. DER technologies are cleaner, more efficient, more environmentally sound, and as deployed in Power Parks can improve our energy management opportunities in both the near and long term. Power Parks and Brownfields The Chicago Power Park Project at the West Pullman Site The Institute has been part of an innovative Power Park project in Chicago, IL. Staff worked with the DOE and the EPA on efforts that merge brownfield development with distributed energy production such as CHP for mutual benefit. Brownfields often are found in power-constrained locations where access to a reliable energy source can be an additional limitation to development. Distributed energy production can create a more attractive development opportunity for a brownfield site. It can produce significant environmental gains and reliable power, while further encouraging economic growth in our industrially-based cities and states. Final Report (November 26, 2001) Presentation of Preliminary Results of the Chicago Brownfield Power Park Project, presented to the City of Chicago Dept. of Environment Staff (September 27, 2001) Presentation: Chicago Brownfield Power Park Project (September 19, 2001) Paper: "Inner City Redevelopment: Brownfield Reuse Utilizing On-Site Combined Heat & Power Energy Generation Systems," presented by Suzanne Watson at the Intertech Distributed Generation Conference in Chicago (September 2001)
Power Park Reports & Presentations
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