The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has added a chapter to the New York Solar Guidebook — the Municipal Solar Procurement Toolkit.

The toolkit provides guidance and resources for communities seeking to develop solar projects on underused properties like landfills and brownfields, according to a release from the authority. It also supports recent revisions to the NY-Sun Megawatt Block Program, which provides financial incentives for developing solar projects in those areas.

The NY-Sun initiative supports Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s mandate for 50 percent of the state’s electricity to come from renewable resources by 2030 to combat climate change.

The New York Solar Guidebook contains tools, step-by-step instructions, and information about solar project permitting, inspection, property taxes, and land leases. It includes an overview guide on municipal procurement as well as ready-to-use templates for a land lease agreement and a request for proposal.

Additionally, NYSERDA offers free technical assistance to help municipalities implement the policies and practices for becoming solar-ready communities.

This toolkit is part of statewide effort to support renewable energy project growth and compliments a rulemaking package adopted by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in June to streamline the State Environmental Quality Review process to encourage sustainable development.

The updates will take effect on Jan. 1, 2019, and will expand the number of actions not subject to further review under SEQR, known as Type II actions, modify thresholds for actions deemed more likely to require the preparation of an environmental impact statement, and require scoping of an EIS.

Examples of Type II actions to be added include installation of solar arrays on closed landfills, cleaned-up brownfield sites, wastewater treatment facilities, sites zoned for industrial use, or solar canopies on residential and commercial parking facilities and the installation of solar arrays on an existing structure not listed on the National or State Register of Historic Places among others.

The NY-Sun Megawatt Block program has already supported 652 megawatts of completed projects and another 979 megawatts are currently under development, the release says.

In June, NYSERDA announced improvements to the Megawatt Block incentive program, including higher incentives for projects on landfills and brownfields as part of NYSERDA’s soft, indirect cost reduction effort. New York has more than 1,300 megawatts of installed and operating solar capacity, or enough to power approximately 229,000 homes, and is adding more.

Growing activity in community distributed generation is in part due to the evolving Value of Distributed Energy Resources policies and the NY-Sun initiative, which are driving greater investments in the CDG sector, the release says.  

NY-Sun is a $1 billion initiative to advance the scale-up of solar and move the state closer to having a sustainable, self-sufficient solar industry. Since 2011, solar in New York State has increased more than 1,000 percent and leveraged nearly $2.8 billion in private investments. There are more than 12,000 people engaged in solar jobs across New York.