Mon Power and Potomac Edison, subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp., have completed their third utility-scale solar site in West Virginia to help meet the state's electricity needs.
More than 17,000 solar panels are now producing up to 5.75 megawatts of renewable power at the Marlowe site in Berkeley County. One megawatt of solar energy powers a national average of 173 homes, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The new solar facility is situated on approximately 36 acres of company-owned property along Interstate 81 and the Potomac River. The site was previously an ash landfill for the former R. Paul Smith Power Station. In 2022, after harvesting more than three million tons of ash for use in cement manufacturing, FirstEnergy successfully completed the closure of the landfill, paving the way for its redevelopment as part of the companies' solar program.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison used 54 local union workers for construction at the site. Additionally, the solar panels, racking system steel and supporting electrical equipment were made in the United States.
Dan Rossero, Vice President of FirstEnergy's West Virginia Generation: "Our solar projects create construction jobs, support U.S. manufacturing and help us accommodate increased demand for electricity. We are committed to ensuring that our customers have the right mix and amount of generation to support their everyday needs, and our solar facilities are a growing part of that."
The companies' West Virginia solar program supports a 2020 bill passed by the West Virginia Legislature that authorizes electric companies to own and operate up to 200 megawatts of solar generation facilities to help meet the state's electricity needs. The program involves the siting and development of solar projects on brownfield or impacted industrial properties while encouraging economic development in West Virginia, as a number of companies require that a portion of the electricity they purchase be generated by renewable sources.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison plan to develop a total of five solar projects that will comprise 50 megawatts of solar generation. The companies completed their first solar project at Fort Martin Power Station (18.9 megawatts) in early 2024, and their Rivesville solar site (5.5 megawatts) came online last fall. In total, the companies now have 30 megawatts of solar capacity.
Combined, the five projects will create more than 87,000 solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) available for purchase by customers who support renewable energy in West Virginia. SRECs are certificates that represent the environmental attributes of solar power and prove solar energy was generated on the purchasers' behalf. For every megawatt hour of solar renewable electricity generated, one SREC is produced.
