That pluck has landed his Charlottesville company the opportunity to be the first to generate large-scale renewable power on the coalfields of Central Appalachia. If the bold venture announced this week comes to fruition, roughly 550 acres of deforested minelands sprinkled across an expansive Nature Conservancy preserve will generate up to 75 megawatts of solar energy within two to three years.
“If it were easy, everybody would be doing it,” Van Clief said about plunging into untested territory. “I’m thrilled … to play a small part in the energy transition in Southwest Virginia. This is a breakout moment for the region. There’s been a lot of talk about this but not as much action.”
Proposal for new solar energy project submitted in Albemarle County
Proposal for new solar energy project submitted in Albemarle County By Max Marcilla | February 23, 2021 at 9:37 PM EST - Updated February 23 at 10:50 PM
BATESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Albemarle County is taking its first steps toward a new energy source.
A permit to build an 8-Megawatt facility for solar energy, with a 4-Megawatt battery energy storage system, has been submitted to the county by Sun Tribe Solar. It’s the beginning of a long process, but the organization says it would bring a new source of energy to the western part of the county.
In a 3-4 vote, the City Council denied the Newport News School Board's request for conditional use permits to install ground-mounted solar arrays at Saunders Elementary School and Hines Middle School.
(Credit: Pixabay)
Twenty-one schools across Virginia are reducing their carbon footprints by powering their operations with solar energy through a partnership between BrightSuite Solar, a subsidiary of Dominion Energy, and Sun Tribe. This partnership brings together two of Virginia’s leading renewable energy companies and their expertise in financing and installation to help school divisions meet their clean energy goals.
The solar arrays at schools in Arlington, Fluvanna, Hanover, King William, Newport News, Powhatanand, and Virginia Beach are being installed in partnership with Sun Tribe, and in total will generate more than 11 megawatts of solar energy at peak output.
Solar panels are installed either atop school buildings or ground-mounted on school property and provide renewable energy to fulfill a portion of the energy supply needs of the schools while reducing their electric utility bills through the Commonwealth’s net metering program using financing provided
Everybody has a favorite topic to bring up at parties when someone who knows them only vaguely and can’t remember what line of work they’re in seeks clues by asking, “So what have you been up to lately?”
“Advocating for offshore wind!” I used to respond brightly, which is why I wasn’t that popular at parties even before the pandemic.
But I got my longed-for turbines when Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and Dominion Energy committed to developing 2,600 megawatts of offshore wind by the middle of this decade.
So now I’m campaigning for another cutting-edge technology, or rather, for a cutting-edge combination of otherwise familiar technologies. I’m talking about agrivoltaics. For those of you not in the know, agrivoltaics refers to using land for solar panels and farming purposes at the same time. The “construction footprint” of solar that is, the amount of land at a solar facility that is taken up by infrastructure and can’t be used for anything else is less