In what might as well be called a Shyamalan-esque twist, the largest section of sPower’s proposed 500 MW solar project in Spotsylvania county, Virginia has been approved. I say Shyamalan-esque, because if he could write twists this good he’d have more Oscars and less films like Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Not only was the project approved, but the vote wasn’t even close, as county supervisors voted 5-2 in approval. Considering the overwhelming public criticism from residents, the opposition shown at public hearings and the initial recommendation of denial of this and the 18-acre portion, this is, well you get the point.
To get a better idea of what the project is set to look like, let’s consult our map:
The landmasses in the map and the capacities listed don’t line up, so it is hard to know exactly how many watts of the project have been approved. The smaller section on the left was previously given the green-light, and if enough ends up making it on the final design it will be among the largest projects west of the Rockies, and the largest known by pv magazine on the East Coast. At a conservative estimation, this project has only had 54% of its landmass approved.
A minute should be taken to address the voices of opposition, as those voices have certainly shown up in our comments section. There is, first and foremost, the group that has attacked the project the harshest: “Concerned Citizens of Spotsylvania County.” The group’s rhetoric has been eerily similar to that of pro-coal advocates and the Koch brothers network of front groups, like the Heritage Foundation, Taxpayer Protection Alliance and SolarSecrets.org. The voices of opposition at meetings have included non-local climate skeptics, a lobbyist that had worked for both coal producer Peabody Energy and, for 25 years, ExxonMobil and advisers for the Heartland Institute.
There was, however, a quieter voice of opposition which should be recognized. These citizens had concerns, not with solar energy as a concept, but the scope of the project. They were even in favor of large-scale solar, supporting the project’s 30 MW portion. The members of this school of thought felt that 500 MW was a bit ambitious for the community of 132,000. While some may disagree with this view, it is at the very least more reasonable.
The opposition did get a bit of what they wanted, as the supervisors voted to cap the project at its 500 MW potential, if approved, quelling fears that sPower would soon thirst for expansion.
Either way, the vote is in and the project needs just one more vote of approval to flex the full scope of its potential. sPower is not the only entity hoping to see this potential realized, as Apple, Microsoft and the University of Richmond have already made agreements to purchase the power generated.
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The scope of this project is remarkable for a solar plant that is not being built in the desert. California has several this size but they generally are not on farmland. Many of the objections voiced in Illinois are due to loss of agricultural land.
Perhaps to be totally unique, and maybe visionary, have any of these developers ever evaluated a solar canopy built over a freeway? Not only would it generate electricity but it could eliminate the huge expense of plowing snow, reduce accidents and eliminate salt water contamination of streams and lakes. A win-win-win situation!
It is really not that far-fetched. Los Angeles with approximately 15% of its land area being parking lots has a large number of solar canopies located therein. What is the difference between building a canopy over parked cars instead of moving ones? The added cost could be absorbed in a few years by reduced snowplowing expenses. There was an evaluation of solar just done in Pennsylvania and the people who did it envisioned a solar plant hundreds of miles long to supply the whole state. Well that is just as long as the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The entire solar industry in this country began in California. They still have almost half of all solar nationwide. California is unique because of their desert landscape in part of the state and a climate in most of the state that is devoid of snowfall. We are copying California too directly.
Anyway after looking at photographs of the massive 100 plus car pileups in the past few weeks due to snowstorms I just keep thinking there is some powerful motivation for roadway solar canopies. We just have to think somewhat differently from California to make it happen.
Interesting comment. I see some issues with building solar canopies over freeways for a few reasons, but I suppose none of them are truly fatal flaws. The main issue I see has to do with the cost of making it structurally sound. The point of building solar canopies or arrays are to turn a profit. This requires signing 25 year agreements with the utility company in order to get paid for your production. Constructing such a canopy to sit over a wide roadway would be a significant economic lift. The structural engineering and design would be very expensive because the canopy would only be able to be supported on the two ends (ie, no support in the middle of the canopy).
There are other issues I can think of, but cost definitely seems to be the most prohibitive.
A solar canopy over a roadway could be supported at three points, one of them being the center of an expressway, for example the Pennsylvania Turnpike. As far as cost is concerned there has to be a reduction in snow plowing costs. Accidents might be reduced also. Right now it is cost-effective and quite common in California to put up solar canopies on parking lots. In my opinion there is not that much difference between a parking lot and a road. Cost always has to be compared to something such as a new power plant. If 1,000 megawatt coal or gas plant costs a billion and 1,000 megawatts of solar canopy costs two billion than the absence of any fuel costs might make the return-on-investment only a few years. By the way they are not making any more farmland.
It is funny how you say that those who were in opposition must have had big money backing, when in fact we didn’t. The group of “concerned citizens” were in fact all neighbors. We do not live in the same neighborhoods. We come from various backgrounds and professions. Many with advanced degrees in science, engineering, education, and business. So we are not a bunch of uneducated people you are trying to portray us to be.
We didn’t like seeing 10 square miles of forest clear cut. sPower made a lot of promises which they will not be held accountable for if they don’t follow through. Some of our neighbors didn’t like the fact that 6 million, yes million, solar panels would be 350 feet from their house. Imagine looking a woods for your entire life and now having to look at solar panels. We are neighbors who got screwed by our Board of Supervisors representative.
Hello Mr. Bolas,
Your comment suggests that you did not actually read the article that you are commenting on. Paragraph 7:
“There was, however, a quieter voice of opposition which should be recognized. These citizens had concerns, not with solar energy as a concept, but the scope of the project. They were even in favor of large-scale solar, supporting the project’s 30 MW portion. The members of this school of thought felt that 500 MW was a bit ambitious for the community of 132,000. While some may disagree with this view, it is at the very least more reasonable.”
In terms of the connections to climate deniers and Koch Brothers-funded think tanks, that’s been well documented. See: https://www.energyandpolicy.org/spotsylvania-solar/
It is a LIE that “The voices of opposition at meetings have included non-local climate skeptics, a lobbyist that had worked for both coal producer Peabody Energy and, for 25 years, ExxonMobil and advisers for the Heartland Institute.”. Who are these people that you are talking about? I am one of the leaders of the Concerned Citizens of Spotsylvania County, I attended most of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission meetings over the last 14 months (4 per month). There were hundreds of presentations made by our local grassroots group and other local citizens against this project. We had no backing or financial support from any outside organizations, as you allege. The bottom line is that the Supervisors betrayed the public trust by intentionally throwing out numerous protections in the conditions of the Special Use Permits, which now exposes the county residents to unnecessary risks to the public health and made the county liable for tens of millions of dollars of liability . It was a disgraceful abuse of power.
The lobbyist in question is Arthur “Randy” G. Randol III and the involvement of him and the other parties referenced are documented here. The article also documents the testimony of Heartland Institute policy advisors, who are very much funded by outside organizations.
@ElectricGuy, putting canopies over highways won’t avoid the need for snowplows as the canopies would have to be high enough for trucks to pass under and at that height the snow will blow in from the side. Also, having anything (short of guard rails) along highways is apt to be more dangerous to drivers. We need 10,000 square miles of solar panels to power the whole country, and we have 13,000 square miles of parking lots; parking lots would seem to be an ideal location for solar canopies.
While I’m sympathetic to Mr. Bolas’ particular situation, it’s worth noting that we lose A LOT more farmland and other undeveloped areas to housing and commercial development than we’ll ever need for solar. From 1992 to 2012 we lost 31 million acres of farmland to development. To me the real question is why/how was sPower presumably able to acquire that 10 square miles of forest land for less money than all sorts of other non-forested land? Was it all private property? Perhaps Mr. Bolas’ issue is not with sPower but with the landowners who sold the land to sPower. Did he and his neighbors try to buy the land themselves to prevent its development?
What experience does anybody have in the design of solar-covered roadways? The only place we have them now is in England where I believe even the London Bridge has a solar canopy over it now. Perhaps there are people we can contact in England and inquire if the solar panels have made keeping the bridge open on rare snowy days any easier.
As far as losing more farmland to other forms of development I do not accept having two wrongs to make a right. If we do not make more efforts to reduce farmland loss from any source we will be an underfed country like half of Europe is today.
Europe is 1) a country and 2) underfed?
Also, installing solar over roadways increases the cost of deployment. If you want developers to do this then you will need policies to pay them extra to account for the additional costs.