West Virginia may not be a trendsetter but many of us are ready for a change.
As energy initiatives go in West Virginia, this is big and not simply because it will cover 300-350 acres.
Indeed, what makes this project even bigger is it will be powered by and is going to deliver cleaner energy.
In September, Longview Power began the permitting process to build a $1.1 billion, combined cycle gas-fired power plant adjacent to its current coal-fired plant near Maidsville.
Much of the attention has been on the gas portion of this project, which will be built first and create 1,200 megawatts of power. The next door coal plant generates about 710 MW.
Most of those headlines are a result of even natural gas-fired power plants still seemingly in the realm of science fiction in West Virginia.
However, what is in the realm of futurism are plans to build a solar power component within the Longview Power Clean Energy Center.
OK, what’s so futuristic about that? Well, for one thing this will be the largest solar generation facility in Appalachia, not to mention the first large-scale one in West Virginia.
The facility will extend into Pennsylvania’s Greene County with its 185,000 solar panels producing as much as 70 megawatts when the sun is shining.
Not so long ago, project costs for such solar facilities reportedly kept implementation of such them off the drawing boards. However, with the price of deploying so many panels dropping and their practicality rising, solar power is attracting attention even here in coal country.
Some still argue for a national energy policy that attempts to return to a past of reckless consumption and fossil fuels whose extraction and carbon footprint were anything but clean. One of their key arguments is that this will strengthen our economy — locally and nationwide — and that we face a hard choice between cleaner energy or more jobs
However, successive years of reports extolling the increasing number of energy efficiency jobs in practically every state, deflate those arguments.
This is not just the stuff of new schools of thought, wealthy investors and public experiments, either, any longer. Investments by business owners are increasingly returning substantial savings and should continue to for years to come.
But this is not a change that only lends itself to someone’s bottom line doing well.
It’s also about doing good: Energy efficiency makes for better climate policy and a cleaner environment.
Eventually, more cleaner energy and more workers in energy efficiency will surpass the fossil fuels industries.
No, the feasibility and innovation of solar power may not be the newest thing under the sun today.
But its future here is looking brighter by the day.
