For the first time in the United States, renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydropower generated more electricity than coal, a trend the federal U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts will continue.
According to data from the EIA released this month, in April 2019, electricity generated by renewables outpaced coal by more than 8,000 megawatt-hours, equivalent to what 11 of the most efficient coal power plants create each year.
This year, the agency forecasts solar, wind and hydropower will produce 18 percent of the country’s electricity. Coal’s share of power production will average 24 percent, down three points from last year. Last year, U.S. coal consumption reached a nearly 40-year low.
West Virginia University Law Professor Jamie Van Nostrand said technology is driving down the cost of renewable energy faster than analysts expected.
“Wind turbines continue to get more efficient, solar panels are more efficient and cost-effective, and I think the biggest breakthrough has been with storage, grid-scale storage,” he said. “It’s staggering how quickly with renewables the prices are coming down and how cost-effective they’ve become.”
Van Nostrand, who also directs WVU’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, added that West Virginia policy has not kept pace. He pointed out that the state does not have a comprehensive statewide energy plan or Renewable Portfolio Standard that might incentivize, or at least recognize, the growing benefits of renewables. Furthermore, West Virginia does not allow third-party ownership of renewable energy, also called Power Purchase Agreements.
“All the other states are taking advantage of both the low electricity rates, and the jobs that go along with clean energy,” he added. “And we are totally missing that in West Virginia.”
Power prices in West Virginia have risen faster than any other state in the nation over the last decade.
U.S. demand for coal to generate electricity will continue its slide in coming months despite efforts by the Trump administration to prop up the struggling industry, federal officials said Thursday.
Renewable energy sources are expected to fill much of the gap left by coal’s decline, according to the Energy Information Administration.
That’s particularly true for Western states, where wind, solar, hydropower and other renewables will provide almost a quarter of the power to households and businesses during the peak summer season, the agency said in projections released Thursday.
Natural gas will remain the fuel of choice for power generation with an expected 40% share of U.S. markets this summer.
Under President Donald Trump, officials have sought to ease coal plant regulations and mining restrictions. But after production briefly bumped up in the year after Trump took office, almost all coal mining states are now experiencing production declines.
Wyoming, Kentucky and Texas have seen the biggest drops so far this year. Among the top 10 coal states, only Montana has seen a slight increase in the volume of coal mined in 2019.
Coal’s share of power generation is projected to be 25% this summer. That’s down roughly half over the past decade and follows a wave of coal plant retirements by utilities seeking cheaper and cleaner-burning alternatives.
Beyond the changes in the number and types of power plants are shorter-term price considerations, analyst Stacy Macintyre with the Energy Information Administration said. Utilities this summer will pay about 3 percent more for coal and 12 percent less for natural gas compared with last year, she said.
Automaker Toyota is planning to announce a major investment in solar and other renewable energy in Appalachia and the Southeastern U.S. The plan includes a massive new solar facility on an old surface coal mine property in Kentucky.
Sources close to the deal tell the Ohio Valley Resource that the Kentucky site is part of a much larger plan. Toyota plans to purchase as much as 800,000 megawatt hours per year, or roughly 365 megawatts, of renewable energy, primarily from developers in Appalachia and the South.
“A project of this magnitude is certainly significant,” said Alex Hobson, director of communications for the Solar Energy Industries Association, a leading industry research group. “You’re talking enough energy to power about 50,000 homes.”
Toyota has already undertaken ambitious energy efficiency goals, with a similarly sized solar array installed on its headquarters in Plano, Texas. But once completed, Toyota’s solar mega-project would place the automaker among the largest corporate investors in renewable energy.
The portion of the project scheduled to be built in Pike County, Kentucky, is a 15- to 20-year power purchase agreement. Partners in the development include: coal company RH Group; French renewable energy company EDF Renewables; and Adam Edelen, former state auditor and current candidate for governor in Kentucky’s Democratic party primary.
At 100 megawatts, the site would be largest solar array in Kentucky and, according to one of the project’s developers, would likely be visible from space. The project is expected to cost $130 million, will be built on a 700-acre reclaimed surface mine site and could create between 50 and 100 renewable-energy jobs in a region still reeling from the loss of coal employment.
Toyota declined to confirm the scope of the project. A spokesperson issued a written statement hinting at an upcoming announcement. “We have been working with certain electric power providers on a very innovative initiative.”
Developers say the massive project is a smart business decision that happens to make a larger point: It’s proving that Kentucky’s economic future is in energy production, but perhaps that energy won’t be limited to coal and other fossil fuels.
“It doesn’t matter whether you care about the environment or not, this is pure economics,” said Ryan Johns, vice president of business development at RH Group. In a nod to Toyota’s slogan, Johns added, “If we don’t diversify our thinking, we’re never going to be able to keep moving forward.”
Power Politics
Toyota’s power purchase agreement would be the final missing piece in a plan that had been in the works for several years. The idea began in 2016 as a conversation between Johns and his longtime friend Edelen, now a Democratic candidate for governor.
The pair were brainstorming ways to reuse previously mined land in RH Group’s portfolio, Johns said, when Edelen suggested a renewable energy project. “Well, I’m the coal guy,” Johns said, “So that gave us quite a good laugh.”
Edelen, who served as Kentucky’s state auditor from 2012 to 2016, said the pitch was immediately of interest to solar developers. “We’ve got a coal company that wants to partner with a renewable energy firm to do a renewables project on a mountaintop removal site and hopefully put a bunch of out-of-work miners back to work. The response was amazing,” he said. “And that’s when we knew we had lightning in a bottle.”
The project was in the works long before Edelen decided to run for governor. But in deep red Kentucky, Edelen acknowledges part of the appeal of the project is uniting people across diverse ideologies and backgrounds for a common purpose. The solar project was “just two Kentucky boys trying to help their community,” he said.
Credit Courtesy of the Edelen for Governor campaign
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Courtesy of the Edelen for Governor campaign
Adam Edelen, left, is a Democratic candidate for governor.
The optics of the announcement are certainly a boon to Edelen, a progressive running against more centrist and better-known opponents in the gubernatorial primary.
Johns acknowledged the challenge of building a large-scale solar farm in a Appalachia.“Solar’s not a new concept, but for here, it’s very new,” Johns said. “All the ancillary businesses that go along with a solar farm, those have to be created for here.”
Johns said he hoped to help other coal companies redevelop surface mine lands into solar farms if the Pike County site is a success.
Developers hope to break ground in summer 2019 and be fully operational by 2021.
Driving Solar
Hobson said businesses are pushing for renewable energy programs to meet corporate sustainability goals and to help their bottom lines.
Virtual power purchase agreements are a popular way that corporations have chosen to pursue renewable energy goals. In those agreements, a buyer, in this case Toyota, pays a fixed price to the seller for the energy that’s generated, but the specific units of energy generated at the site do not go to the buyer directly.
PPAs accounted for nearly five gigawatts of solar energy in the United States in 2018. For context, that’s 15.6 million individual solar panels.
Toyota’s partnership with RH Group is the part of the company’s goal of a net-positive carbon impact by 2050. The company’s central Kentucky plant has been implementing renewable-energy and energy-efficiency solutions for years, with LED lights and methane-capture technology systems already in place.
An investment of this size would make Toyota a significant player in what SEIA characterizes as a major push from corporations to embrace renewable energy.
Coal Country Solar
Adding 100 MW of solar energy would more than triple Kentucky’s existing solar energy output, which was less than 50 MW at last industry report. “An additional 100 megawatts in the Bluegrass State could produce enough electricity to power about 12,000 households,” said Hobson.
Restrictive net metering policies in Ohio Valley states have lowered the return on investment for residential and commercial consumers who install solar, and the region’s deep ties to the coal industry have made politicians reluctant to embrace renewable energy.
Still, the economics are clear. Because of cheap natural gas, dozens of coal-fired generators have been retired or switched to natural gas in the Ohio Valley alone. The federally owned utility Tennessee Valley Authority voted in February to close more of its coal-fired power plants in Kentucky and Tennessee despite opposition from elected officials including President Donald Trump and Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin.
Johns said he expected RH Group to continue as a coal-centered business, but he acknowledged that the writing was on the wall. “We would love more than anything for coal to keep being mined,” he said. “But the reality of it is, on the power generation side, our customers are gone. They have switched to natural gas and diversified their portfolio.”
Johns said he hoped that the involvement of a coal company in a massive solar project would defray what he considered outdated rhetoric pitting coal against renewables. “In no way are we turning our backs on the fossil fuel industry. All we’re doing is adding to the growth Kentucky can have.”
Shepherd University is teaming up with a wind farm in Greenbrier County to teach students about renewable energies through an internship program.
Shepherd University held a symposium on renewable energy Friday as part of the inauguration of the school’s 16th president, Dr. Mary Hendrix. The symposium featured three speakers Hendrix referred to as “all-star experts” in energy.
Michael Polsky was one of those speakers. Polsky is the founder of Invenergy based out of Chicago, which started commercial operations in West Virginia in November 2015.
Polsky announced that Invenergy’s Beech Ridge Energy Storage Project in Rupert in Greenbrier County will partner with Shepherd University to hire a student each summer to learn about the real-world applications of renewable energy, such as:
“Biological conservation, potentially some others, you know, data collection; things like that,” Polsky explained, “and they will see firsthand, you know, how this project operates and what does it take to operate and maintain them, and hopefully they will tell other people, and there’ll be more interest.”
Polsky says universities shape young minds, so it’s important for them to stay ahead of the curve.
“Institutions like Shepherd University have to be on the forefront of change, of innovation, of really, to provide direction to young people in their career, you know, their future careers, where sort of the world is going, and I feel that energy is one of the really transformational areas we’re witnessing now.”
Lawmakers met at the Capitol in Charleston Monday to show support for US Senator Shelley Moore Capito’s proposed legislation that will roll back the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan in West Virginia.
Senator Capito’s proposed legislation is called ARENA, or the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act. Co-sponsored by US Senator Joe Manchin, the bill would provide a way for a state’s governor to opt out of a state or federal plan that could negatively impact economic growth or electricity ratepayers.
Senate President Bill Cole and other lawmakers spoke in support of the legislation at the Capitol in Charleston. Cole hopes other state and federal officials will work together to ensure ARENA’s success.
“We’re headed down a road right now that is out to destroy, not only coal, but natural gas, our next opportunity,” Cole noted, “I am not against the renewables, not by any stretch of the imagination. But if we take half of the money that we have to research the renewables and then take the other half and perhaps work on clean burn technologies, I think there’s a good balance to be struck.”
Senator Capito’s bill would also prevent the federal Environmental Protection Agency from withholding federal highway funds from states who do not comply with the Clean Power Plan.
