The Berkeley Energy Group and EDF Renewable Energy say they are setting up plans to build the “first large-scale solar project in Appalachia,” according to the Courier-Journal. The plans would focus on Pikeville mountaintop removal mining sites and could potentially provide enough space and sun to produce considerably more solar energy than what exists in Kentucky right now.
By comparison, that could be five to 10 times are big as LG&E and KU Energy's 10-megawatt solar farm at its Brown station in Mercer County. That Central Kentucky array has 45,000 solar panels on 50 acres that company officials have said can provide energy for about 1,500 homes. The Kentucky Public Service Commission last year also approved an 8.5-megawatt solar farm for East Kentucky Power in Winchester.
The realities of the universe have been slow to seep into Kentucky, but reality is reality and even the Kentucky Coal Museum is going solar. There is good news here as the Appalachian region has been hit terribly hard by the dying economics of coal production—and the promise of solar jobs for former coal workers who are now unemployed is a welcome change. The bad news is that Kentuckians are so desperate for work and positive change that the sins of coal companies shaving off mountaintops and poisoning the waterways will likely go unpunished as they begin to profit off of the solar energy they should have been pursuing years ago.