“Why Pa. Push For Brownfield Renewables May Not Be Enough,” written by Louis Dodge and published in Law360 on September 16, 2026.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro made headlines last month when he signed Executive Order No. 2026-05, directed at strengthening permitting restrictions and public input on data center development.
Shapiro indicated that he will task a special counsel on energy affordability with advocating to the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission for rule changes to ensure that energy-related costs do
not drive up prices for average Pennsylvanians.
Lost in the headlines, however, was a direction for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to “identify mechanisms to expedite permitting and remove permit-related barriers for new clean, reliable, affordable energy generation and storage facilities on brownfield and previously developed sites and facilities.”
Shapiro’s brownfields permitting reform may increase energy affordability. But a closer look at Pennsylvania’s clean energy landscape shows that additional reforms may be needed to encourage clean energy projects on contaminated or abandoned industrial sites. Pennsylvania has already seen a number of renewable energy projects slated for brownfield sites.
Several renewable utility developments are planned for reclaimed mine land across the state, including a 402-megawatt project in Clearfield County that would be the largest solar facility in the state. And the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh is in the process of redeveloping a 15-acre slag heap into a solar array.
Shapiro’s order is aimed at increasing the number and pace of these types of projects, with affordable energy generation to compensate for electricity-hungry data centers in mind. Additional clean energy generation presents one piece of the solution to rising energy costs and rapid development of data centers across the country. But conflicting incentives for developers create significant barriers to entry, which could undermine efforts to streamline the permitting process for such projects.
On Sept. 14, the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission projected that the Commonwealth’s electric grid will fall well short of PJM Interconnection’s reliability standards by 2030, emphasizing the need for more energy generation across the board.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has prescreened 35,067 brownfield sites for renewable energy development, with over 1,200 of those sites located in Pennsylvania.[1] These Pennsylvania sites present nearly 10,000 acres ripe for clean energy development.[2]
The state’s existing grid-scale solar siting policy encourages prioritization of “reuse and repurposing … previously impacted lands to make [such] sites viable alternatives for hosting grid-scale solar development compared to … agricultural and forested lands.” In Pennsylvania specifically, farmlands are subject to permanent conservation easements that restrict grid-scale solar projects.
For clean energy developers, brownfields can present attractive options, notwithstanding the environmental challenges and potential legacy liabilities attached.
Former industrial sites often have access to transmission lines, substations, access roads and other infrastructure required for access to the electric grid, with the added benefit that developers may be able to avoid long waits to interconnect to the power grid.
Pennsylvania already makes financial assistance available for brownfield remediation projects under a number of programs, such as the PENNVEST and Industrial Sites Reuse initiatives, allowing developers to access grants and low-interest loans to defray remediation costs.
Creative deal structures, such as including indemnification provisions, requiring insurance and structuring deals as asset sales, can limit the potential liabilities that attach to a purchaser.
Prospective developers of reclaimed sites may also be exempt from liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as the Superfund law, under either the innocent landowner[3] or bona fide prospective purchaser[4] defenses, depending on the circumstances surrounding the site in question. Still, Shapiro’s order does not fill all the gaps in Pennsylvania’s clean energy policy landscape, which may stymie efforts to spur clean energy development on former industrial
properties.
For instance, community solar programs are not yet allowed in Pennsylvania, limiting the potential for smaller scale solar projects that might be more appropriate than grid-scale solar for smaller brownfield sites.[5]
While the Community Solar Act, which would allow such projects in Pennsylvania, is currently pending in the General Assembly, critics have noted that such projects would nonetheless face barriers even if the legislation is passed.
Additionally, Pennsylvania is only one player in the permitting process for new solar facilities.
The state regulates erosion and sedimentation control and stormwater management for new solar developments. But municipalities also have significant control under local zoning ordinances, and PJM Interconnection LLC must evaluate grid interconnection requests. And Shapiro’s push to streamline permitting for clean energy brownfield projects, which face other local permitting hurdles, comes in tandem with his embrace of local input on data center development, as outlined in the executive order.
It remains to be seen what mechanisms the DEP will identify in furtherance of removing barriers to clean-energy development on brownfield sites.
Greater coordination between the DEP and counties and municipalities could expedite zoning and land use reviews. And legislation pending in both chambers of the Legislature seeks to create a new reliable energy siting and electric transition board that would take land use decisions for clean energy projects out of municipalities’ hands.
That type of intergovernmental coordination would substantially reduce burdens on clean energy developers, while creating a uniform process with less potential for delay. More likely, however, is that the DEP’s efforts will focus primarily on the stormwater, erosion and sediment control permitting processes currently within its jurisdiction.
While helpful, those potential reforms still leave substantial hurdles project developers must overcome to add a proposed solar array to the grid. And Pennsylvania still faces significant future work to maximize the impact those projects can have on grid stability and energy affordability.
In 2022, the EPA identified streamlined permitting as just one of eight categories of policies and programs that have stimulated clean energy developments on brownfields in other states.
Other such programs include direct financial incentives, procurement preferences in state or utility electricity procurements, site identification and project support, education and outreach, liability relief, interagency coordination, and support for general brownfield reuse. If Pennsylvania further examines these other policies and programs in order to reduce barriers to clean energy development generally, it could incentivize development of clean energy projects on brownfield sites and promote energy affordability.
One legislative proposal pending in the Pennsylvania Senate would offer tax credits for solar projects located on brownfields, abandoned mines, capped landfills, warehouses or parking facilities. However, the same legislation would restrict solar projects on certain farmlands to the extent that they are not already subject to conservation easements.
Earlier this year, Pennsylvania enacted S.B. 349, which imposes financial assurance requirements for solar developers to provide surety for solar facility decommissioning, with developers required to provide financial assurance equal to 40% of the cost of decommissioning.
For developers interested in constructing solar projects on brownfields that may already carry additional costs associated with contamination and potential liabilities, these new financial assurance requirements only create additional burdens that will likely stifle investment and project development, even accounting for DEP’s forthcoming permitting reforms.
This all goes to show that clean energy developers must grapple with a somewhat quixotic regulatory landscape.
Shapiro’s executive order opens the door to streamlining the DEP’s permitting processes under the existing multilevel framework. But additional action from the Legislature may be needed to effectively eliminate barriers to bringing a significant number of new clean energy projects online.
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Louis Dodge is an associate at Langsam Stevens Silver & Hollaender LLP.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of their employer, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective
affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and
should not be taken as legal advice.
[1] Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and Superfund sites, which are not included inShapiro’s executive order, add another 475 prescreened Pennsylvania sites to the list.
[2] Though this program, known as the RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative, was created
during the Biden administration, the EPA appears to be continuing to support it. A full list of
prescreened sites, compiled in 2024, is available
here: https://geopub.epa.gov/repoweringApp/.
[3] An innocent landowner is one who did not and had no reason to know of contamination
on the property, despite having conducted all appropriate inquiry prior to purchase.
[4] To qualify as a bona fide prospective purchaser, (1) any release of hazardous substance
must have occurred prior to the acquisition; (2) the purchaser cannot be affiliated with any
potentially responsible party, whether a current/former owner or operator, arranger, or
transporter; (3) the purchase must not impede any response action or resource restoration
efforts; and (4) the purchaser must conduct all appropriate inquiries and meet all ongoing
obligations with respect to the property, including requests for information, land use
restrictions, institutional controls and provision of any required notices.
[5] Community solar projects are those in which community members pay for a share of
electricity generated by the project and receive a portion of the dollar value of the electricity
generated through their subscribed-to project.
See https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/community-solar-basics.