.jpg)
Aug. 26, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette In his letter to the editor last week, “How Much Land Needed To Meet Solar Goals,” Steven Hart comes to the conclusion that Rockbridge is not suited for solar energy production.
My own experience with producing solar energy right here in Rockbridge leads me to a different conclusion. Not only is Rockbridge well-suited for solar energy, but the process is amazingly efficient.
In 2022 our family installed a small solar array on our farm. It has 18 ground-mounted solar panels. The array is connected to our house and the grid.
Placed in a corner of our pasture, the footprint of our array is 341 square feet. We fenced off a total of 1,350 square feet, or .03 acres. The USDA reports that pasture in Rockbridge rents for $19 an acre, so we’re giving up about 57 cents worth of potential agricultural income each year.
In 2023, our household consumed 12.7 MWh of electricity, slightly above the national average of 10.6. Our array generated 10.9 MWh, equal to 86% of our consumption. A one-acre array in Rockbridge would be expected to generate about 363 MWh.
So, based on the actual numbers from our array, how much solar would Rockbridge need to produce an amount equal to 100% of county consumption? Total Rockbridge consumption is reported as 344,350 MWh, so the total amount of land needed would be 950 acres.
That’s a significant, but feasible, amount of land. Hopefully, much of the solar will be placed on rooftops and yards. For the rest, we seem to have a good supply of overgrazed, pastures with marginal soil that could use a few decades to recover. Many of these pastures are not highly visible; all of them are previously disturbed habitat.
Continuing to burn fossil fuels for our electricity is not an option that our grandkids can live with. Let’s be part of the solution, take some personal and community responsibility, and get on with generating clean, renewable, low-cost electricity, right here in Rockbridge. ERIC SHEFFIELD Rockbridge County
