For the past two years the Energy Technology Summit has been held at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, bringing together energy producers, suppliers, energy innovators, government officials and academicians. The third summit will be held Monday, April 19, to generate new ideas on how to enhance our energy driven economy.

Wise County has long been known for its extensive energy production. Coal and natural gas have played significant roles in the shaping of our county. The local coal industry provides well-paying jobs that fuel a national economy hungry for electric energy. Entrepreneurs can expand the number of “energy workers” in the local economy if energy technology innovation is actively embraced.

Hundreds of acres of Wise County land is underutilized in post mining land use. Yet there is the economic possibility to obtain a higher rate of return on investment by properly planned energy development and investment by new post mine land use.

Lands that have minimal value due to past use and present conditions, such as former surface mined properties, should be evaluated for potential solar energy development. It is said that a coal-fired power plant produces approximately 11.5 kWh of electricity per square foot of coal consumption each year. A large photovoltaic solar farm located on mined lands may produce as much as 10 times that electric power yield over an additional 20-year span. The potential result is maximization of kWh of electricity per acre to unparalleled levels of energy production in the Wise County coal-producing region.

While skeptics may point to unfavorable economics of large solar farm construction in the Wise County mountains, they may be in error. Mineral and surface land owners engaged in coal extraction may find a myriad of incentives to study in the near-term. A mining firm has sunk cost considerations in reclamation plans in either mountain top removal or return to approximate original contour required by federal regulation unless a higher community use is identified prior to mine closure.

Post mine land use could result in reclamation bond reductions or transfer liabilities to a solar power farm firm through appropriate legal agreements and regulatory agency approvals. A community utilization of solar power generation would be a favorable post mined land use while, at the same time, building a more energy sustainable community.

In addition to reclamation incentives, Wise County could adopt ordinances to provide real estate tax relief for post mine land use that incorporates a solar farm. Precedent exists from a 1994 Wise County ordinance that provides tax relief for solar facilities and devices. Local public policy could help build a new alternative energy industry in partnership with coal and utility interests.

Thinking ahead, coal producers in some form of stock ownership of large solar farms, would be better positioned to engage any future mandated domestic or international carbon trading market. Coal companies could produce carbon-based fuels and reclaim the land with alternative solar farms generating not only electricity, but what will become more valuable carbon trading credits.

Solar farm energy technologies are improving very rapidly with the Germans viewed as the leading innovator in the sector. China is considered the low cost manufacturer of the solar power devices creating a market bubble of competition. In short, solar power production is now a dynamic market growing rapidly.

Solar power panel manufacturing is a real possibility where there is sufficient local product demand.

Economies-of-scale could be achieved provided a local workforce and solar power panel producers looked to not only a regional residential installation approach but producing for several 100-to-200 acre solar power producing farms in the Appalachian mountains.

If a solar power manufacturing facility and a solar farm maintenance operations center were to be located in one of the Wise County enterprise zones, the solar power firm(s) would qualify for state employment tax incentives while evolving the concept of local energy production worker. Within this decade Wise County may have a trained workforce capable of photovoltaic solar panel production to serve both residential and commercial building markets and larger-scale solar power electric generation farms built on once surface mined coal lands. Mountain Empire Community College is now a part of such a workforce training project.

The workforce driver is solar power demand.

Market demand for solar power generation is the key ingredient for solar power farms and PV solar power manufacturing facilities. There are realistic solar power market demand possibilities if coal communities strategically position to engage the power grid providers.

Solar farm power provider agreements are possible with three electric utilities, e.g. Kentucky Utilities, Appalachian Power and Dominion Resources from within Wise County. These public utilities are being required to purchase alternative energy generation capacity now. In other words, market demand for well-positioned solar energy farms is growing as utilities seek to expand renewable energy portfolio standards.

North Carolina’s Duke Power has sought to expend $100-million to create 850 solar power generation sites including homes, schools, stores and factories to create a virtual power plant. The US Department of Energy is seeking to seed similar ideas in communities in the United States now. Similar federal government and public utility programs will drive PV solar panel market demand in this decade.

The potential for nurturing a solar power industry within Wise County may be worthwhile if the economics and cooperation can be set upright. A large-scale venture of this type would require solar power innovators, coal company executives, utility planners, government policy makers and the community-at-large to work in tandem.

There may be sufficient rewards for everyone to achieve realization but it must be explored.

It was the impoverished Pound, Va. native by the name of Napoleon Hill that once said, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Conceiving solar power farms on mined land may lead others to believe, so our community may achieve an evolution in energy production.

Jack Kennedy is a co-organizer of the Southwestern Virginia Technology Council’s Energy Technology Summit held annually at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise. He takes an active interest in public policy relating to energy and technology. Contact him at Jack@JackKennedy.net .