A solar farm comes online on a coal ash landfill site in West Virginia

A 5.5-megawatt (MW) solar farm just came online in Rivesville, West Virginia, on a brownfield site near a shuttered coal-burning power station.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison, subsidiaries of FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE), completed their second utility-scale solar farm in West Virginia 10 months after bringing their first solar farm online, the 18.9-MW Fort Martin Power Station solar farm in Maidsville, in January. (Fort Martin is still a working coal plant, and FirstEnergy sadly has no intention whatsoever of retiring it anytime soon.)

The new Rivesville solar farm sits on around 27 acres of FirstEnergy-owned coal ash disposal landfill along Morgan Ridge Road. FirstEnergy says the site hasn’t been used since the coal-burning Rivesville Power Station was shuttered in 2012.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison employed 63 local union workers for construction at the site, and the solar panels, racking system steel, and supporting electrical equipment are US-made. Nearly 14,000 solar panels are now providing clean electricity to nearly 1,000 homes.

The two utilities began construction last month on their third project, Marlowe, a 5.75-MW solar farm on a former ash landfill site in Berkeley County. They have a total of five solar farms in the pipeline.

West Virginia Legislature passed a law in 2020 that authorizes electric utilities to own and operate up to 200 MW to develop solar on brownfield sites to help meet the state’s electricity needs. Adding renewables to the grid also encourages economic development in West Virginia, as a growing number of companies require that a portion of the electricity they purchase be generated by renewable sources.

The companies say they will seek final approval from the Public Service Commission of West Virginia to build solar sites in Davis, Tucker County (11.5 MW), and Weirton, Hancock County (8.4 MW) when they have customer commitments for 85% of the renewable energy credits generated by those projects.

Combined, the five projects will create more than 87,000 solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) available for purchase by customers who support renewable energy in West Virginia. SRECs are certificates that represent the environmental attributes of solar power and prove solar energy was generated on the purchasers’ behalf. For every megawatt hour of solar renewable electricity generated, one SREC is produced.

Dan Rossero, vice president of FirstEnergy’s West Virginia Generation, said, “Our solar projects create construction jobs and support economic growth by helping West Virginia recruit and retain employers. We are pleased to reach another important milestone in our solar program and are excited about the interest we continue to receive from subscribers.”

Mon Power serves about 395,000 customers in 34 West Virginia counties, and Potomac Edison serves about 285,000 customers in seven counties in Maryland and 155,000 customers in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, West Virginia ranked 48th among states for its cumulative capacity of solar installed. It’s projected to rise to 42nd place over the next five years.