Automaker Toyota is planning to announce a major investment in solar and other renewable energy in Appalachia and the Southeastern U.S. The plan includes a massive new solar facility on an old surface coal mine property in Kentucky.
Sources close to the deal tell the Ohio Valley Resource that the Kentucky site is part of a much larger plan.
Automaker Toyota is planning to announce a major investment in solar and other renewable energy in Appalachia and the Southeastern U.S. The plan includes a massive new solar facility on an old surface coal mine property in Kentucky.
Sources close to the deal tell the Ohio Valley Resource that the Kentucky site is part of a much larger plan.
The optics of the announcement are certainly a boon to Edelen, a progressive running against more centrist and better-known opponents in the gubernatorial primary.
Johns acknowledged the challenge of building a large-scale solar farm in a Appalachia.“Solar’s not a new concept, but for here, it’s very new,” Johns said. “All the ancillary businesses that go along with a solar farm, those have to be created for here.”
Johns said he hoped to help other coal companies redevelop surface mine lands into solar farms if the Pike County site is a success.
Developers hope to break ground in summer 2019 and be fully operational by 2021.
Driving Solar
Hobson said businesses are pushing for renewable energy programs to meet corporate sustainability goals and to help their bottom lines.
Virtual power purchase agreements are a popular way that corporations have chosen to pursue renewable energy goals. In those agreements, a buyer, in this case Toyota, pays a fixed price to the seller for the energy that’s generated, but the specific units of energy generated at the site do not go to the buyer directly.
PPAs accounted for nearly five gigawatts of solar energy in the United States in 2018. For context, that’s 15.6 million individual solar panels.
Toyota’s partnership with RH Group is the part of the company’s goal of a net-positive carbon impact by 2050. The company’s central Kentucky plant has been implementing renewable-energy and energy-efficiency solutions for years, with LED lights and methane-capture technology systems already in place.
An investment of this size would make Toyota a significant player in what SEIA characterizes as a major push from corporations to embrace renewable energy.
Coal Country Solar
Adding 100 MW of solar energy would more than triple Kentucky’s existing solar energy output, which was less than 50 MW at last industry report. “An additional 100 megawatts in the Bluegrass State could produce enough electricity to power about 12,000 households,” said Hobson.
Restrictive net metering policies in Ohio Valley states have lowered the return on investment for residential and commercial consumers who install solar, and the region’s deep ties to the coal industry have made politicians reluctant to embrace renewable energy.
Still, the economics are clear. Because of cheap natural gas, dozens of coal-fired generators have been retired or switched to natural gas in the Ohio Valley alone. The federally owned utility Tennessee Valley Authority voted in February to close more of its coal-fired power plants in Kentucky and Tennessee despite opposition from elected officials including President Donald Trump and Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin.
Johns said he expected RH Group to continue as a coal-centered business, but he acknowledged that the writing was on the wall. “We would love more than anything for coal to keep being mined,” he said. “But the reality of it is, on the power generation side, our customers are gone. They have switched to natural gas and diversified their portfolio.”
Johns said he hoped that the involvement of a coal company in a massive solar project would defray what he considered outdated rhetoric pitting coal against renewables. “In no way are we turning our backs on the fossil fuel industry. All we’re doing is adding to the growth Kentucky can have.”
