36-Acre Solar Project Now Producing Energy in West Virginia
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Some residents of Berkeley County in West Virginia are now basking in energy being provided by 17,000 solar panels.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison, subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp., recently completed construction of their third utility-scale solar site in the state. The panels are producing up to 5.75 megawatts of renewable power at the Marlowe site located in Berkeley.
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 1 MW of solar energy powers a national average of 173 homes, which means around 1,000 Berkeley County residences will be getting their power from the new facility.
The solar farm is located on approximately 36 acres of company-owned property along Interstate 81 and the Potomac River. It was formerly the site of an ash landfill for the R. Paul Smith Power Station. FirstEnergy completed the closure of the landfill in 2022, successfully paving the way to repurpose the 26-acre property for the utility-scale solar facility.
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 U.S.
“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,” Dan Rossero, vice president of FirstEnergy’s West Virginia Generation, said in a written statement.
FirstEnergy says plans are to develop a total of five solar projects that will comprise 50 MWs of solar generation.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison completed their first solar project of 18.9 MWs at Fort Martin Power Station in early 2024. That was followed by the 5.5 MWs Rivesville solar site which came online in the fall of 2024. In total, the companies now have 30 MWs of solar capacity.
Since the inception of the solar program, Mon Power and Potomac Edison have enrolled residential customers as well as large commercial and institutional customers, including the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown and the town of Harpers Ferry.
You can reach us at [email protected] and follow us on Facebook
We're proud to make our journalism accessible to everyone, but producing high-quality journalism comes at a cost. That's why we need your help. By making a contribution today, you'll be supporting TWN and ensuring that we can keep providing our journalism for free to the public.
Donate now and help us continue to publish TWN’s distinctive journalism. Thank you for your support!
