Nature Conservancy to build six solar power plants on abandoned Appalachian coal mines - Entrepreneur Generations

Dark green areas are the Cumberland Forest Project.
(Nature Conservancy map)

"In southwest Virginia, abandoned coal mines are being transformed into solar installations that will be large enough to contribute renewable energy to the electric grid. Six old mining sites owned by the Nature Conservancy will be some of the first utility-scale solar farms in the region — and the nonprofit group hopes it’s creating a model that can be replicated nationwide," Zoeann Murphy reports for The Washington Post.

The abandoned mines came with 253,000 acres of forest the Nature Conservancy acquired in 2019, an area it now calls the Cumberland Forest Project. Why develop solar on an old coal mine? It's not just for the irony. Murphy reports: "Solar developers partnering with the Nature Conservancy, such as Dominion Energy and Sun Tribe, say the mine sites have vast flat areas exposed to sunlight that are a rarity in the mountains, and the sites offer advantages like being close to transmission lines."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/Bam6soG Nature Conservancy to build six solar power plants on abandoned Appalachian coal mines - Entrepreneur Generations

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