By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
We talked about this a couple of times last week, but coal country is suffering as more utilities are cutting back on their use of coal. Which makes it more interesting when coal may be replaced by a 400 MW solar farm in Ohio Appalachia – which is right in coal country’s heart.
Inside Climate News has the details:
American Electric Power submitted a plan Thursday evening to work with two developers to build 400 megawatts of solar in Highland County, Ohio. It would more than triple the state’s current solar capacity and be a big step forward for solar energy in a part of the country where renewable energy has been slow to develop.
What makes this particularly interesting is that American Electric Power (AEP) is one of the staunchest coal-fueled utilities in the country. After all, their primary service area is in the heart of coal country.
But they view this move as the start of a “just transition” from coal to renewable energy, Inside Climate News reports. As jobs are lost in the coal industry, additional renewable energy opportunities will allow those workers to have jobs directly with the plants and the other industries that will crop up surrounding the plants.
“This is something that Appalachia needs,” said Dan Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Inside Climate News. “The jobs of this renewable energy economy are going to go somewhere and I think it’s important that they go where they’re needed.”
Other utilities will be watching this proposal closely because it is challenging the regulatory structure in Ohio, which currently separates utilities from their power plants. The rule supposedly keeps markets competitive, and this proposal would challenge that rule.
Solar advocates are hoping that approval of this project will open the market for future solar development for the region.