A massive solar farm is being built at one of the largest coal mines in southern Appalachia.
BrightNight, the developer of the decades-old Spark coal mine project farm near Hazzard, Ky., said the project could help revitalize a region that has lost thousands of mining jobs. Construction of the first phase could begin as soon as 2026.
The completed project will generate 800 megawatts of electricity, nearly twice the capacity of the 412-megawatt coal-fired unit at EW Brown's power plant, which is just a few hours away from the mine.
Yale Climate Connection spoke with BrightNight's Joseph Albrecht and Maribeth Sawchuck about why they think building solar farms on coal mines is a can't-fail solution. Sawchuck is Vice President of Communications, and Albrecht is the lead developer on the Starfire project.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Yale Climate Connection: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of the Spark Mine and its importance to the area?
Joseph Albrecht: Starfire has been an active coal mine since the early 1970s. It is one of the largest coal mines in southern Appalachia, if not the largest. Coal has been mined there by many different companies, but there are still active mines where coal comes out of the ground every day—thousands of tons at a time.
Starfire has an incredibly rich history. It was one of the first sites to implement [the mountaintop removal] Mining style, mines over the years and until recent history have been extremely innovative in terms of creating new mining strategies or methods. The mine is responsible for considerable coal production in the region and ultimately provided much of the region's energy source over the past several decades.
This is a fairly single-source, single-source economy, as coal mining provides nearly all of the jobs in the region, except for service jobs that provide housing, health care, and recreation for the miners. As coal mining has declined dramatically over the past few decades, the economy has also suffered. Currently, many knowledgeable workers are trapped in the area.
Maribeth Sawchak: Approximately 15,000 mining jobs have been lost in the region over the past 12 years. The project itself spans three counties, plus a fourth county that will cover rights-of-way for transmission lines. All four counties have some of the highest levels of poverty, lowest life expectancy, and lower educational attainment in the United States. So when you think about equitable access to renewable energy, this is a prime area. This is an ideal location when you are considering retraining for future energy jobs.
One project certainly cannot bridge this gap. But I think what's really interesting is [the Starfire project] This is how it can help revitalize the area. This is a local economy that's really underpinned by mining, and now that mining is declining, how do we keep people working and try to improve some of those statistics?
YCC: How was the site chosen for this solar project?
Albrecht: The siting of renewable energy sites requires consideration of several different factors. Crucial among them is access to a very strong grid, with well-connected high-voltage transmission lines in the region. This is a very critical factor when selecting a site, especially for Starfire, which is very close to a really critical point on the grid where eight or more circuits (or different wires) come together in one location and then Issued back from there. This is really what we were looking for for such a large project.
One of the unique features of Starfire is that it remains an active coal mine to this day and the methods of reclamation are quite modern. Reclamation—essentially placing materials back on top of exposed coal seams to restore them to some form of natural aesthetic or topography—has changed significantly over time. In Starfire, much of the terrain becomes relatively flat after mining is complete. So you end up with hundreds of acres of mostly flat land. People describe it as a bit like a wedding cake – these layers of very flat plateaus stacked on top of each other.
This unique topography makes it an extremely favorable location for solar power generation. Otherwise, you have very natural, rugged, mountainous terrain, but you pretty much have these extremely flat islands, thousands of acres in total for Starfire. So this is a very key driver. This is definitely the largest open pit mine, and it's also the largest mine with the flattest, most continuous area – these flat areas are very adjacent to each other, and they're not spread out over multiple different ridgelines or across valleys from each other. We do have huge 5,000 acres, 6,000 acres, 7,000 acres of land that are adjacent to each other where we can do a lot of solar development.
Sawchak: Our country needs more electricity, but we can't make more land. Therefore, it’s crucial to be creative with where you place these items. The Spark Mine is a great example of low-impact, highly valuable infrastructure. we can put [about] With 800 megawatts on this mountain, it hardly bothers anyone. This is an ideal use of land.
YCC: Are there any challenges during construction when you have to climb up the hill to get to that flat area?
Albrecht: One of the benefits of being in such a dense coal region is that the industry has been around for decades and a lot of infrastructure has been built here, not just power but also physical, transportation type infrastructure, so you're getting into a highly engineered ized space. There are four-lane highways almost everywhere you need to go—and equipment capable of transporting hundreds of tons of coal at a time travels up and down these thoroughfares. So you do have a lot of built infrastructure to span, more so because Spark is an active mine. There are 50-foot wide haul roads on several sides of the mountain, so we don't have the typical access issues you have when accessing land not used for other industrial or commercial uses. We have established an environment for this type of use. So it's an extremely natural transition to continue to build the infrastructure and then continue to produce energy in the region. In this case, it will directly target these coals.
YCC: What's the timeline for groundbreaking?
Albrecht: The Starfire project will ideally be a four-phase project: four phases of 200 MW. Construction on the first phase could begin as early as 2026 and be completed as early as 2027 or 2028. We think this is very important for the region and the region. More specifically, the three county towns surrounding the project, Hazzard, Hindman and Jackson, have a great opportunity to become a hub for renewable energy development construction companies and other related contractors and consultants who will work in our industry. So one of the things we're trying to do is make sure we bring a lot of scale to the region as quickly as possible to make sure those cities, those counties are able to get long-term jobs and benefits from those projects.
YCC: Can this situation be replicated elsewhere?
Sawchak: One thing that was really important to our industry in this project was its replicability. Not all mines are repaired equally, and mines are being closed across the United States. So the way they close does matter. When mines close, they should take remedial measures to make development more desirable.
Albrecht: We're trying to innovate with Starfire and work with active coal mining companies to actually start optimizing portions of real estate for solar development. [We want] Find out the best way to reclaim land so that it is most suitable for future use as a solar power plant.
So we see a lot of great synergies with the coal mining industry and really work to build that partnership, which I think creates a very innovative business model and gives me a lot of hope that this is something we can do A reproducible situation that applies to multiple other mines as well as others that have not yet been recovered.
So there are several places where there are still coal reserves and we're trying to synchronize plans with the active mining companies so that if they open a new hole, mine the coal, and start the reclamation process, we can do the work right and it's basically done After mining, they reclaim the land for solar energy development. Within a year or two of them finishing extracting coal from the ground, solar panels may appear on the site. So that's one of the innovative things that we're doing, especially from the permitting side, is finding a way to get the mining company to reclaim the site, which basically means restoring the land to more or less what it was originally . They plant grass and then typically have to wait five years or so before the site is fully exempt from any mining or permitting obligations by the state or federal government. What we're doing by working directly with them is actually giving them the opportunity to complete the reclamation process within a year or two of completing mining.
[Permitting] It gets pretty complicated, but at least in Kentucky, we see this as a possible way for coal companies and renewable energy companies to work together and mutually benefit [for] Shift to solar development or any other renewable energy development. The mining engineers who are working with us to make our project possible take great pride in the engineering and planning that has historically gone into the mine and how it can continue to deliver value in their area – [there is] Post-mining commercial or industrial use cases.
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