Travelers taking the Boston-bound train through North Kingstown may have noticed a new expanse of blue in the landscape. As passengers lean closer to their windows, what initially appears to be a lake materializing in the distance quickly transforms into rows upon rows of newly installed solar panels.
Occupying what used to be a 240-acre gravel pit, the 117,210-panel Dry Bridge solar farm now generates 40 megawatts of clean energy — enough to offset two-thirds of Brown’s on-campus electricity consumption. The project received its final regulatory approval on Tuesday, making it one of the largest solar farms in the state.
Dry Bridge puts the University — the sole offtaker of the project — on track to meet its goal to cut 75% of emissions by 2025.
Encircled by trees and punctuated by a few windmills in the horizon, the solar panels stretch as far as the eyes can see — not much to look at. But for Frank Epps, CEO of the project’s developer Energy Development Partners, the scene is far richer.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “And I think this thing is beautiful.”
Beneath the unassuming solar panels, scores of wiring, circuits and connections transport the solar energy collected to a new substation across the Wickford Junction, Epps explained. From there, the energy is dispersed to the Rhode Island grid, powering over 9,000 homes in the state.
The project was originally expected to be fully operational by 2022, but several regulatory hurdles required years of adjustments and negotiation.
According to Stephen Porder, associate provost for sustainability at Brown, the delays faced by the project reflect nationwide regulatory challenges with incorporating renewable energy into existing grids.
Federal and state commissions that regulate the transfer of energy to the grid can be wary of new renewable energy projects, due to their fluctuations in energy production, delaying the approval of solar projects like Dry Bridge, Porder explained. Other renewable energy developments in the state — including the rise of offshore wind projects — have further complicated regulatory processes.
“We hoped that it would go super smoothly, but we also had the expectation that somebody’s got to go first,” Porder said. “If we run into all these cobwebs on the trail, hopefully the people behind us won’t have as many cobwebs as they go on the trail.”
Through a 25-year power purchase agreement, Brown has agreed to pay renewable energy provider MN8 Energy to operate Dry Bridge, which MN8 also owns. The University is the solar farm’s sole off-taker and has agreed to purchase the Dry Bridge’s electricity and renewable energy certificates — a commitment essential for Energy Development Partners to finance and build the project, wrote Porder in a separate email to The Herald.
By supporting the development of a new solar farm instead of sourcing RECs from existing facilities, Brown hopes to incentivize the addition of new renewable energy projects to the grid, Porder added.
Dry Bridge’s completion and approval follows several other power-purchase agreements and renewable energy transitions made by the University. In 2019, Brown entered a long-term agreement to purchase RECs from Texas-based wind farm Mesquite Star, which offsets 8 megawatts of on-campus electricity use, The Herald previously reported.
The University also made power-purchase agreements with two smaller Rhode Island solar farms. Of the various initiatives, Dry Bridge will offset the most campus emissions.
These renewable energy initiatives are part of the University’s broader goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, a pledge made via Brown’s 2021 Sustainability Strategic Plan.
Since setting the net-zero goal, the University has worked to electrify campus vehicles, revised heating systems and explored ways to revamp campus to eradicate fossil-fuel energy use. Initiatives have also included switching to sustainable building and cleaning materials, limiting consumption of meat in dining halls and electrifying groundskeeping equipment.
But for Porder, the transition to net-zero is “not an easy feat.”
“The only way to get to zero is to just start running as fast as you can towards it,” he said. ”Sometimes when you do that, you trip and stumble, or you go the wrong way, and then you have to pick yourself up and go a different direction, or do something different.”
Porder took pride in the fact that Brown played a key role in developing Dry Bridge and reaping in its benefit, and “that’s roughly 25,000 tons of CO2 a year that are not going into the air because of that.”
Tom Li is a Metro editor covering the health and environment and development and infrastructure beats. He is from Pleasanton, California, and is concentrating in Economics and International and Public Affairs. He is an avid RIPTA passenger and enjoys taking (and criticizing) personality tests in his free time.
Julia Vaz is the managing editor of newsroom and vice president on The Herald's 134th Editorial Board. Previously, she covered environment and crime & justice as a Metro editor. A concentrator in political science and modern culture and media, she loves watching Twilight (as a comedy) and casually dropping the fact she is from Brazil.
