2023-08-23 20:14:43
Travelers taking off and landing at Dulles International Airport, just outside the nation’s capital, will soon see an array of 200,000 solar panels placed near the runways – the largest renewable energy project ever built at an American airport.
Dominion Energy and the Washington Metropolitan Airport Authority broke ground on the 835-acre project Tuesday.
The solar farm is just one small part of Dominion’s massive effort to add 16,000 megawatts of solar capacity — enough to power 4 million homes — by 2035 as it tries to comply with a state law requiring 100% of its non-nuclear energy production is zero emission by 2045.
However, Virginia’s rural counties are resisting the expansion of solar energy, as their inhabitants complain about the loss of farmland, the destruction of views and construction noise.
In recent months, Henry, Pittsylvania, Clarke and Shenandoah counties have taken steps to restrict or regulate new solar projects.
Bev McKay, a supervisor in Clarke County, said it’s unfair that rural counties get the burden for hosting solar farms.
Urban areas “are heavy consumers of electricity and there is no reason why urban areas cannot generate their share of solar power rather than rely on rural areas to do it for them,” he told a board meeting. of Supervisors last month, according to the minutes of the meeting.
Others spoke out against increasing costs. Dominion and the State Corporation Commission have estimated a 72% increase in electricity costs between 2020 and 2035. And Governor Glenn Youngkin has suggested revising the law mandating clean energy.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Democratic Senator Mark Warner praised local leaders for completing the Dulles project and spoke of the need to build such projects. But he acknowledged in an interview that his office is receiving more and more complaints about solar farms, saying solar projects are only part of the solution to meeting energy needs sustainably.
“It is an issue that is not going to disappear and that is why there cannot be a single solution,” he said.
Virginia is one of 10 states, along with the District of Columbia, that mandates the production of 100% clean or renewable energy with time frames ranging from 2030 to 2050, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Solar power is an important part of the state’s plan, but not the only one. Virginia law allows nuclear power to be part of Dominion’s portfolio, for example.
The Dulles project adds 100 megawatts of solar generation, plus 50 megawatts of battery storage, enough to power about 37,000 homes. It is expected to create 300 jobs and be completed in 2026.
Dominion claims it has already put some 2,000 megawatts of solar power on stream. It has another 7,000 megawatts, including the Dulles project, in various stages of development. That means Dominion will still have to find dozens of additional sites across the state in the coming years to reach its 16,000-megawatt goal.
Edward Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, says the company works closely with local governments to make sure projects are acceptable. For example, some of the first projects lacked vegetation barriers to minimize the visual impact. Now that kind of cushioning is the norm.
“We want to make sure that those counties are satisfied” with the development of the projects, he said.
For Dulles’ project, however, its visibility is a feature, not a flaw. Officials cited the symbolic importance of a massive solar project that will be visible to travelers at the airport, which serves as the region’s hub for international travel.
“The image that you will see now when you look out the window upon landing and see the solar panels that have been installed at this airport is exactly the type of future image that we want to make sure the world sees,” concluded the Chairman of the Board of Fairfax County Supervisors, Jeff McKay.
1692825564
#Solar #Panels #Surround #Dulles #Airport #Power #Homes #NBC #Washington