CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Saying a solar project planned for the old Dupont site in north Berkeley County ‘is longer economically viable’ Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power are terminating the project.
The Charleston Gazette reported earlier this week that “Appalachian Power has terminated its first project under state law enabling utility-scale solar development in West Virginia, a year after proposing the project and seven months after it was approved.”
Wheeling Power and Appalachian Power filed notice Friday with the state Public Service Commission of the termination of what was planned to be a 50-megawatt solar facility to be constructed in Berkeley County siting issues with access to the land.
Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye told the Gazette the developer lost access to some of the leased land on which the development was planned, which would have reduced the facility’s generating capacity by 30%, from 50 megawatts to 35 megawatts. Bedington Energy Facility LLC, a Delaware subsidiary of Virginia-based Torch Clean Energy, planned to invest $100 million to build a solar facility on 750 acres on a Berkeley County brownfield site, according to an agreement between the county and
Bedington exempting the company from personal property tax payments for 15 years. After that time, the company was to assume ownership of machinery equipment on the site from the Berkeley County Development Authority,” according to the newspaper.