The Long Island Solar Farm

In November 2011, a utility-scale solar array became operational in the most unlikely of places, at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Eastern Long Island, New York. The Long Island Solar Farm project came together as a joint effort of five very different interest groups: a federal agency, a research institution, an electric utility, a private business, and the general public. The project is remarkable for three major reasons: first, it is the largest utility-scale solar power plant in the Eastern United States; second, it is a commercial project built on federally administered public lands; and third, the project was very unlikely to have started in the first place. The process by which the Long Island Solar Farm was developed is intricate and unusual. This reflects many of the nuanced conditions that made siting the solar farm on federal property a unique opportunity for very different groups. Though many of these nuances make the Long Island Solar Farm difficult to imitate as a template, the research aspects of the project make it a trailblazing resource to inform future development of photovoltaic (PV) solar projects in the East. Furthermore, the innovation in attitude it took to develop this project serves as an excellent model for large-scale solar power development and public-private partnerships in general.