What can you do with a full landfill? After decades of taking the community’s refuse, the 680-acre Tessman Road Landfill in San Antonio, Texas, is putting part of its site to use to make energy. A flexible photovoltaic cover has transformed 5.6 acres of the landfill’s south-facing slope into a solar farm. Republic Services Inc., the Arizona-based company that owns the landfill, worked with United Solar Ovonic of Michigan to develop the first-of-its-kind solar-electric landfill cap—more than 1,000 Uni-Solar flexible solar strips adhered to the synthetic geomembrane liner used to cover and close the landfill when it reaches capacity.

The new solar-electric cover complements the landfill’s biogas-to-energy system, which has been in operation since 2002. Republic and CPS Energy, the local utility, will study and document the results of this solar demonstration project to determine the feasibility of using the solar-electric cover on other landfills.

With more than 300 days of sunshine in San Antonio per year, Republic estimates that the energy produced by the PV and biogas systems will create enough energy to power 5,500 area homes. The company’s research suggests that as many as 2,350 acres of its 213 landfills nationwide could be fitted with solar-electric covers, generating enough solar energy to power up to 47,000 homes.

Several landfills nationwide are equipped with solarelectric systems, with countless others slated for future installations. Tessman is the only one currently utilizing the Uni-Solar flexible landfill cap.