Pulaski County considers first utility scale solar project

By Colt Shaw

Weeks after Pulaski County, Virginia announced its SolSmart “solar ready community” gold certification process, Hecate Energy has formally submitted plans for the county’s first utility scale solar project.

Elaine Holeton, the Director of the county’s Planning and Zoning Board, said the timing is coincidental but the company’s plans are a sign of how far the county has come in attracting clean energy development, calling it “a little bit serendipitous.” 

The 280 MW project would cost around USD 400m and sit, in three phases, across some 2700 acres in the county.

“Renewable energy is something that Pulaski County has been looking at for quite some time to sort of diversify our economic base,” Holeton said in an interview with New Project Media. “We referenced it in our comprehensive plan, and we see it as sort of an emerging trend that we definitely wanted to … look into to see if that’s a good fit for our location.”

Hecate Energy and its state affiliate, AgriSun Power, are using the opportunity for economic diversification to sell the project, touting the possibility of data centers from tech companies with renewable procurement goals moving to the county. 

“In terms of the county looking at renewable energy to diversify our economic base, attracting those high tech companies and data center operators like Amazon and Google, is definitely part of the strategic vision for our community,” Holeton said.

A public information meeting is planned for 1 December.

“It’s rare that you get a land use application for almost 3000 acres in a locality such as ours,” Holeton said, “so we definitely wanted to provide enough time for the public to learn about the project and that was the driving force for us to have this … public information meeting.”

The project will be reviewed by the planning commission on 12 January and could be passed on to the Board of Supervisors with a recommendation of either “approve” or “don’t approve” by the end of that month, Holeton said.

“We’re really early in the planning review,” Holeton said. “So, because it is mostly on agricultural and industrial-zoned properties, it will require a special use permit. 

The project has been in planning since 2019, AgriSun spokesman Jay Poole said in an interview with New Project Media. If permitting goes smoothly, he said, work could begin on the project as soon as 3Q21.

The company has struck deals with about a dozen landowners, he said.

“And this is a little bit nontraditional … I think typically when you think of a solar operation you think of flat land and you think of one or two major landowners and you buy a big square,” Poole said. “This is not like that; this is on land that’s a little more rolling and there are contiguous parcels that are owned by different people. And so, this is a little different way of putting together a solar facility.”

Poole pointed to the history of renewable energy in Pulaski County, namely a hydroelectric generating facility constructed in the first half of the 20th century by Appalachian Power on Claytor Lake, in explaining the county’s embrace of the “solar ready” designation and why Hecate is interested in developing there.

“I think it’s fair to say that Pulaski County has been engaged in green energy as an integral part of their local economy for a long, long time. And in that sense, solar fits right in with it,” Poole said.