Portland community solar project shines new light on former 82nd Avenue dumpsite

On a small, hilly south-end section of a lot on Portland’s Northeast 82nd Avenue, next to a pickleball court, construction crews have begun clearing blackberry bushes and moving mounds of dirt. They’re working to bring new life to a fenced-off vacant landfill across the street from a bustling McDaniel High School.

This lot is being transformed into a nature sanctuary for wildlife and community members, as part of a larger effort to revitalize 82nd Avenue into a safer, more climate-resilient corridor. But the site will also house another benefit — community solar.

Community solar gives renters and other people who can’t put solar panels on their rooftops a way to join together to benefit from the lower electricity bills solar energy can bring.

The 82nd Ave Community Solar project will have seven arrays of hundreds of solar panels that could generate enough energy to lower the bills of 140 low-income East Portland households that are customers of Pacific Power or Portland General Electric.

At a time when the federal government has rescinded billions of dollars toward climate action and government shutdowns have impacted funding to help low-income families pay for their energy bills, this project is using money from Portland’s climate action fund to keep renewable energy investments flowing.

It’s also providing jobs in the renewable energy industry, while helping low-income Portlanders access the benefits of solar.

And it’s happening at a site the Bird Alliance of Oregon bought two years ago.

“We purchased this site on Northeast 82nd, this 12-acre parcel, with the intent of building our new wildlife hospital in this space and transforming what was once a landfill into a community asset,” Bird Alliance of Oregon Conservation Director Micah Meskel said during a recent visit to the site.

Meskel said the project showcases the intentional impact for community members as well as continued improvements to the 82nd corridor.

More climate-resilient 82nd Avenue

Driving down Northeast 82nd Avenue, it’s becoming easier to spot changes to the once very busy and neglected corridor. For decades, the avenue was a legacy highway, an essential route for many people to travel through Portland. But when Interstate 205 was built, 82nd became a less popular route. That led to fewer improvements and less maintenance.

Since the Portland Bureau of Transportation took over the corridor from the Oregon Department of Transportation in 2022, there’s been an infusion of $80 million in federal, state and city funding, along with a promise to upgrade the corridor and make it a safer route.

Now, there are newly added bike lanes and pedestrian crossings to increase safety, recently planted trees to create shade and reduce the heat island effect on hot days, and repaved sidewalks.

This is all part of a multi-phase plan for the next decade, when tens of millions of dollars will continue to pour into the corridor, including a boost in public transit.

The Bird Alliance’s site purchase created a new opportunity to combine Portland’s broader climate resilience goals with the avenue’s transformation. The site was previously used as a rock quarry and later filled with rubble from the construction of Interstate 205.

Duncan Hwang, the community development director of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, known as APANO, lives a few blocks away.

When the billion-dollar Portland Clean Energy Fund opened a round of grant opportunities for climate investments, APANO was quick to apply. It joined other nonprofits that have been working together to be part of the revitalization with the goal of making the avenue the “most transit-rich, affordable, and climate-resilient part of town,” Hwang said.

The community solar project was a natural fit, said Portland Clean Energy Fund Program Manager Sam Baraso.

APANO’s proposal for a community solar project centered on PCEF values — helping vulnerable residents adapt to climate change, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and creating community partnerships — all in one place.

“This is one of the first places where we, as a program, really took a broad investment in saying we’re not going to just piecemeal make investments,” Basaro said. “We want to double down on something that has been called for by the community for so many years in terms of meaningfully investing in this corridor.”

Overall, PCEF is investing more than $60 million in revitalizing the 82nd Avenue corridor. That includes funding to support TriMet’s transit project and affordable housing development.

Grassroots to the grid

As other nonprofits have joined the Bird Alliance and APANO, ambitions for the site have gone even further — to include helping formerly incarcerated people train for new careers in renewable energy and providing mental health services for the trainees.

Solar installation company Imagine Energy works with nonprofit Leaders Become Legends to offer job training in trade skills like solar installation and electrical.

Breto Jackson, co-founder of Leaders Become Legends, says a focus on mental health for trainees comes even before workforce training

“Once they get trained, certified, and you see the work behind you, and this is all coming from guys like us who have been there and now giving back to our community by teaching our people on how to thrive,” Jackson said.

The nonprofit Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which runs other community solar projects across the city, will then help residents of the area benefit from that work.

The 82^nd Avenue solar project could save enrolled households about $300 a year on their energy bills, according to APANO — or a combined $900,000 on energy bills over the 20- year lifetime of the project.

“All these things are building upon each other to build a neighborhood and the community that we wanted to see for decades,” Hwang said. “And it has been decades and it’s taken a lot of community organizing.”

The 82nd Avenue project is expected to be completed by February. It will be the seventh community solar site funded by the Portland Clean Energy Fund. Other sites are located in the Mississippi neighborhood, the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church, Goodling Annex and three more located on the Port of Portland property.

There are currently 130 spots available. Portland residents who are interested in learning more about the project and want to see if they qualify can apply here.