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    Mon Power, Potomac Edison Complete Solar Farm at Retired Coal-Fired Power Plant Site

    Oct. 22, 2024
    The Rivesville solar is situated on FirstEnergy-owned property that has been unused for 12 years, since the coal-fired Rivesville Power Station was deactivated.
    Aerial view of the Rivesville solar farm at the former coal-fired power station property. Image credit FirstEnergy via Flickr and used with permission
    Aerial view of the Rivesville solar farm at the former coal-fired power station property. Image credit FirstEnergy via Flickr and used with permission

    A new, 5.5-MW solar farm is completed and producing carbon-free energy on the site of a long-retired coal-fired power plant in West Virginia.

    Mon Power and Potomac Edison, both subsidiaries of utility holding company FirstEnergy Corp., coordinated the 27-acre project in Rivesville, WVA. The grid-tied solar farm is comprised of nearly 14,000 solar panels and could generate enough electricity into the grid to equal load from more than 900 homes, according to reports.

    The Rivesville solar is situated on FirstEnergy-owned property that has been unused for 12 years, since the coal-fired Rivesville Power Station was deactivated. U.S. utilities have closed nearly half of the nation’s coal-fired units, cutting the fossil resource’s electricity capacity from 318 GW in 2011 to 159 GW in 2023, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

     "Our solar projects create construction jobs and support economic growth by helping West Virginia recruit and retain employers,” Dan Rossero, vice president of FirstEnergy’s West Virginia Generation division, said in a statement. “We are pleased to reach another important milestone in our solar program and are excited about the interest we continue to receive from subscribers."

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     Mon Power and Potomac Edison used 63 local union workers for construction at the site, and the solar panels, racking system steel and supporting electrical equipment were made in the United States. West Virginia, which has experienced the coal downturn firsthand, has seen its employment revive from a 15% unemployment rate in April 2020 to less than 5% this year, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s St. Louis office.

    In 2020, the West Virginia Legislature authorized plans to allow electric utilities to own and operate up to 200 MW of solar generation to aid the state’s grid resource adequacy. Mon Power and Potomac Edison together are developing 50 MW of solar power, completing their first joint project at Fort Martin Power Station in Maidsville earlier this year.

    Together, the utilities’ projects will create more than 87,000 solar renewable energy credits which can be purchased by customers statewide. Those credits help finance renewable capacity additions and are available to residential, commercial and industrial customers at close to 4 cents per kWh per credit and in addition to normal electricity rates, according to the utilities.

    These credits are also similar to subscriptions for community solar projects, which are smaller than utility-scale solar farms and offer a less expensive means to renewable energy than rooftop solar.

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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