Pound, Va. — When Randy Carter was growing up in the heart of coal country, his grandmother counted on the warmth of the sun to dry laundry she hung on the backyard clothesline.

Now, half a century later, he serves on the Wise County Board of Supervisors that greenlighted an enterprise also dedicated to harvesting sunlight—a solar array designed to power the equivalent of 1,700 homes when it comes online within two years.

Wildcats Solar panels will cover roughly two-thirds of 100 acres high above Highway 23 near Pound. It’s expected to generate $800,000 in tax revenue for the county over its projected 40-year lifespan.

That’s just the dawn of The Nature Conservancy’s proposal to re-energize Central Appalachia with renewables.

Indeed, the notion of stationing solar panels on reclaimed surface mines has been flirted with for years. But the country’s largest environmental organization is intent on being the beacon that leapfrogs the “nice idea” phase by planting 500-plus megawatts of arrays and energy-storing batteries on minelands that pock its prized 253,000-acre Cumberland Forest Project in Southwest Virginia and adjacent Tennessee and Kentucky.

Carter beams with pride about his county being plucky enough to begin transitioning from a fossil fuel that defined the region for centuries to a carbon-free electricity source with the potential to foment an economic turnaround.

However, the opportunity to saturate the region with affordable, renewable and locally sourced energy is being jeopardized by the budget reconciliation bill President Donald Trump signed into law on Independence Day. Provisions in H.R. 1 severely limit once-generous incentives for all forms of solar development nationwide.

That could imperil TNC’s Cumberland Forest solar initiatives while also inflating electric bills, depriving residents of the health benefits affiliated with clean energy and denying rural municipalities millions in taxes and fees. Virginia households could pay an additional $250 annually for energy, according to one estimate.

U.S. Congressman Morgan Griffith voted for H.R. 1 because “the positives of the bill clearly outweigh the negatives,” he said in a statement.

The Republican, who has represented Southwest Virginia since 2011, highlighted how “the unleashing of American energy potential contained in this bill will lead to increases in production. Because of this energy costs are expected to stabilize and even be lower in the coming decade.”

Griffith’s vague H.R. 1 assessments counter research and insights from the solar industry. And nowhere does he mention the potential blow his vote could deliver to the struggling coal communities he has represented for decades.

The law he backed also speeds up considerably the timeline companies have to complete commercial projects before tax credits disappear. Those subsidies, hot potatoes for much of their two-decade existence, had been solidified and boosted in the Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden in 2022.

Norfolk-based Jim Purekal, who oversees governor and state legislator outreach for Advanced Energy United, a national industry association, said the takeaway from the H.R. 1 is “to get these (solar) projects approved and developed ASAP. We are now in a rush.”

TerraForm Power, ENGIE North America and Dominion Energy Virginia are well aware of that urgency. In 2021, TNC began signing agreements with the three companies to construct 25 projects that add up to at least 189 MW of solar panels and 320 MW of battery storage. The latest—and final—round was announced in February. Those 500-plus MW would provide enough energy to power up to 85,000 homes.

Brad Kreps, the Abingdon, Va.-based director of TNC’s Clinch Valley Program, has his fingers crossed that the new law doesn’t compromise his nonprofit’s promise to lift the fortunes of diminished rural communities and also show investors that strategically sited renewable energy can be incorporated into a land restoration blueprint.

“When you roll together the economic and community benefits, there’s a compelling case that these solar projects are on the side of being good for people and good for nature,” he said. “It would be a real shame if they weren’t developed.”

For instance, the 509 MW of solar projects would generate $6.8 million in grants for community-driven initiatives in the Cumberland Forest’s tri-state region, per TNC’s agreements with developers. The bulk of it, $5.3 million, would be destined for Virginia applicants. But those dollars won’t materialize if arrays are canceled, Kreps said.

Greg Meade, TNC’s director of the forest project who also works out of Abingdon, said shorting local residents of those benefits would be harsh because “that windfall is such a big deal” for filling funding gaps.

TNC’s revenue stream from leasing Cumberland Forest land to renewable energy developers could also shrink considerably if solar projects are canceled, Meade added. He declined to provide any specific figures.

Relatedly, the installations will potentially generate hundreds of thousands in tax revenue for the municipalities where they’re built. No exact total is available because those sums are negotiated between the companies and local governments, Kreps said.

“It’s an uncertain environment but we still think the development of solar projects responsibly sited on areas of lower environmental value is a great value proposition,” he said. “Clearly the demand for energy keeps going up.”

The latter is especially true in Virginia, propelled by a surge in the construction of electricity-hungry data centers. Unconstrained demand for power is predicted to double over the next decade , according to a December independent forecast commissioned by Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

Stymieing solar puts the greatest negative impact on ratepayers because utilities will likely have to pay more for power from projects that don’t qualify for tax credits, Purekal said.

Energy Innovation, a non-partisan think tank with an office in Washington, predicted that H.R. 1 would almost double wholesale electricity costs—to $6.2 billion in Virginia by 2035–and also increase annual energy costs per household by $250 in that same timeframe.

Relatedly, Virginia will likely join other states in buying more expensive out-of-state energy or fossil fuel-generated energy that costs more and takes significant time to permit and build, Purekal said.

“Even after the tax benefits go away,” he said, “solar is still the most cost-effective form of energy generation we have.”

In 2019, the dual threats of climate change and biodiversity loss prompted TNC to depart from its traditional philosophy of buying one parcel at a time to purchase the enormous swaths that it renamed the Cumberland Forest. About 153,000 of those quarter-million acres are in Southwest Virginia.

While protecting and restoring wild areas is the nonprofit’s wheelhouse, such a gargantuan landscape demanded ingenuity. A commitment to renewing and diversifying Central Appalachia’s economy prompted TNC to consider siting renewable energy on about 40,000 acres of Cumberland Forest minelands where planting trees wasn’t practical.

TNC acquired the Cumberland Forest properties in a $130 million deal that required adopting a corporate ownership model. To pursue solar, the organization vowed to seek out companies compatible with its values and approach and capable of figuring out which sites had enough level land and access to roads and electric lines.

The Solar Energy Industries Association roots for niche initiatives such as development on brownfields – and fears Trump’s mammoth law will thwart them.

“In the face of rising energy costs, global instability and growing demand for power, Congress has turned its back on the very industries that are adding the majority of the new electricity generating capacity to the grid,” said trade group CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. “It is deeply disappointing to see partisan politics outweigh pro-growth solutions that serve all Americans.”

Griffith regularly touts how he spearheaded his state’s 2018 inclusion in a federal grant program that streamlines the reuse of old mine sites to create jobs, draw visitors and usher in opportunities.

It’s the same initiative that helped Charlottesville-based TerraForm qualify for a $500,000 federal grant, vetted by the Virginia Department of Energy, to cover costs of environmental standards on a Wise County site last mined in 1957. Years before its relationship with TNC, TerraForm secured permission to pioneer a first – a 3.6 MW array that has powered the Mineral Gap Data Centers in Wise County since 2023.

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