Farmers Branch to be powered by solar farm

Farmers Branch is hiring B.Q. Energy to build a 20-acre solar farm on the site of the former Valley View landfill. Photo courtesy of Farmers Branch.

April 28, 2022

Farmers Branch is about to go solar in a big way. 

The Dallas County suburb will soon meet its total municipal electric demand with a solar farm built over the city's former landfill.

In February, the city of Farmers Branch selected New York-based B.Q. Energy Development to begin construction of a roughly 20-acre solar farm on Valley View Lane just east of the President George Bush Turnpike. 

Once completed two years later, the solar facility will generate 13.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year for the city, which has a population estimated at around 50,000. That's enough electricity to power all the city's municipal buildings, street lights and other assets plus another 1,100 homes, says the city's sustainability manager, Alexander Pharmakis.

"B.Q. Energy will be the ones that will be pretty much responsible for everything from the permitting, design, equipment purchase, installing the panels — they'll work with operation, maintenance, and then all the way through the decommissioning of the project when it's at end of life," Pharmakis says.

Once completed two years later, the solar facility will generate 13.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, which is enough to power all the city's municipal buildings, street lights and other assets plus another 1,100 homes, says the city's sustainability manager, Alexander Pharmakis.

Pharmakis says the idea for using the city's former landfill for a solar farm grew out of a sustainability plan passed by the city council earlier in the year. They looked at the feasibility of rooftop solar and other means to mitigate the city's carbon footprint. But the use of a “brownfield site” for power generation had the bonus benefit of solving a lingering set of problems associated with the degraded landfill site that's been closed since the 1980s.

"They're limited uses that we can do with the land without paying for remediation, which for a site that big is very expensive," Pharmakis says. "If it's not remediated, then the city can be liable for that since it was a former municipal landfill. Since [the solar farm is] not going to be puncturing the cap of the landfill or anything like that, putting solar there is a pretty good use for the site."

Pharmakis says the idea for using the city's former landfill for a solar farm grew out of a sustainability plan passed by the city council earlier in the year.

The land itself, aside from being a closed landfill, is located in an industrial section of Farmers Branch near two heavily trafficked thoroughfares where noise levels are high, which makes the site a poor fit for a park or wildlife refuge — two common ways that decommissioned landfills have been repurposed.

The project developer, B.Q. Energy, was formed in 2002 specifically to coordinate construction and maintenance of renewable energy installations on brownfield sites such as the Farmers Branch landfill. In 20 years, the company has been involved in more than 30 projects throughout the country, including a 50-megawatt wind power facility in Dumas, Texas.

B.Q. Energy is one of the developers of Houston's new 240-acre solar project, which got the green light from TCEQ this month. The Sunnyvale Solar Farm will be built on one of the city's municipal landfills, making Houston home of the largest urban solar project in the country, generating 50 megawatts of power annually — enough to supply 5,000 to 10,000 homes.

As far as accolades to boast, Pharmakis says that although Farmers Branch will not be the first city to have all of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources, it may be the first in Texas and perhaps in the whole U.S. to have all of its municipal electric needs met by power generated by renewable sources located within its own city limits.

"We were kind of fortunate with this opportunity with the land, being a former landfill and the output that we're expecting from the site matching pretty well with the city's electricity usage, and having that be in boundary," Pharmakis says.

As far as accolades to boast, Pharmakis says that although Farmers Branch will not be the first city to have all of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources, it may be the first in Texas and perhaps in the whole U.S. to have all of its municipal electric needs met by power generated by renewable sources located within its own city limits.

Additionally, the photovoltaic panels that will be installed are of a newer polycrystalline silicon panel technology that is less reliant on heavy metals that have made some solar installations more difficult to discard or recycle once they've reached the end of their productivity.

Jeff Brady, director of communications for Farmers Branch City Hall, says the project is a win-win situation for the city, taxpayers and B.Q. Energy, which will be allowed to build the project on the landfill. 

“And in exchange, the price that we pay for energy is going to be locked in at a low price for 20 years, but then the developer gets to sell the excess to the state or to whomever,” said Brady.

For Pharmakis, seeing widespread approval for the project has been rewarding as the solar project may be counted as a major achievement for a city whose sustainability plan was only formalized this year. 

“It's just largely foundational — just kind of setting some focus areas and goals," Pharmakis says of the sustainability plan. "So there's a big focus, obviously, on increasing renewable energy and then kind of the classics are in there — energy conservation, water conservation, working with our built environment to make it more efficient.”

"This is exciting work. And we're doing it in a way that's cost effective, where we're bringing everyone on board with it,” he adds, regarding the solar project. "It was unanimously passed through the council. We've had support through the city manager, through the council, through the mayor, so it's one of those things where it feels like it's checking all the boxes, so that part's really nice.”

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