Article
Plans for Botetourt County wind farm moving along – although slowly
Roanoke Times|Laurence Hammack|Dec 22, 2022
Rocky Forge is still facing legal challenges from a group of about a dozen Botetourt and Rockbridge county residents who live anywhere from two to 25 miles away from the wind farm site on North Mountain, about five miles northeast of Eagle Rock. They oppose the turbines on multiple grounds: that they will mar the scenic landscape, kill birds and bats that fly into their rotating blades, cause other environmental damage and produce low frequency noise and shadow flicker.
Rocky Forge is still facing legal challenges from a group of about a dozen Botetourt and Rockbridge county residents who live anywhere from two to 25 miles away from the wind farm site on North Mountain, about five miles northeast of Eagle Rock. They oppose the turbines on multiple grounds: that they will mar the scenic landscape, kill birds and bats that fly into their rotating blades, cause other environmental damage and produce low frequency noise and shadow flicker.
The U.S. government's first-ever sale of offshore wind development rights off the coast of California drew $757.1 million in high bids, mainly from European companies seeking a foothold in the U.S. wind-power industry's expansion to the Pacific Ocean. The auction began on Tuesday and ended Wednesday.
Utility-scale, onshore wind farms can be found in four of the five states that border Virginia — North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Maryland.
Virginia has none, but not for lack of trying.
Plans to build massive wind turbines atop a mountain ridge in Botetourt County have moved slowly since 2016, with construction yet to start. Several earlier attempts to erect what would have been the state’s first wind farm, including one on …
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The U.S. government's first-ever sale of offshore wind development rights off the coast of California drew $757.1 million in high bids, mainly from European companies seeking a foothold in the U.S. wind-power industry's expansion to the Pacific Ocean. The auction began on Tuesday and ended Wednesday.
Utility-scale, onshore wind farms can be found in four of the five states that border Virginia — North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Maryland.
Virginia has none, but not for lack of trying.
Plans to build massive wind turbines atop a mountain ridge in Botetourt County have moved slowly since 2016, with construction yet to start. Several earlier attempts to erect what would have been the state’s first wind farm, including one on Bent Mountain in Roanoke County, came to naught.
For Apex Clean Energy, the developer of Rocky Forge Wind in Botetourt County, one of the biggest challenges has been finding a buyer for the electricity to be generated by about a dozen 634-foot tall turbines.
After getting all of its required permits in 2017, Apex searched for nearly two years before striking a deal to export its power to the commonwealth of Virginia, which was looking for ways to meet its renewable energy goals.
The deal, in which Dominion Energy would first purchase the electricity from Apex and then sell it to Virginia, fell through a year ago. Since then, Rocky Forge has been back on the market.
No power purchase agreement has been reached, although Apex is having “ongoing conversations” with potential buyers, the company’s vice president of public affairs, Dahvi Wilson, said in a Dec. 14 email.
In February, not long after a contract with Dominion expired and was not renewed by mutual agreement, Apex said its proposed wind farm had “drawn significant market interest” and expressed confidence that “the project will fully contract in the next few months.”
No takers had been found by late September, when the wind farm gained a revised permit from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Apex said then that it planned to start construction without a final deal in hand, on the assumption that the more “real” the project became, the more interest it would draw.
Current plans call for construction to begin in the summer of 2023, and for the utility to be operational the following year, Wilson said.
Opponents say there’s a reason why things are taking so long.
“The Rocky Forge Wind farm will produce a relatively minimal, if not negligible, amount of electricity in an area of the country with comparatively weak wind resources,” William Skaff wrote in comments to DEQ, which solicited public input earlier this year before reaffirming its approval.
When operating at full capacity, the wind farm will generate 75 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 21,000 homes. But that’s when the wind is strong and steady, which critics say doesn’t happen enough to make the project sustainable.
However, advances in technology have improved the efficiency of wind turbines, and their use has grown in recent years as the country looks for ways to combat climate change.
Dan Crawford, chair of the Sierra Club’s Roanoke group, pointed to wind turbines in other states surrounding Virginia as evidence that the concept can work. West Virginia has seven such facilities, and construction of an eighth one is almost done, Crawford said.
“Why West Virginia is so far ahead of us is puzzling,” he wrote in an email.
Even today, he said, there seems to be a lack of urgency by the general public to replace greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels with renewable energy like wind and solar.
“Way too many people don’t even see rapid climate change as the result, in great part, of man’s actions,” Crawford said. “Rapid climate change is something most people deny in the interest of comfort and security. We can energetically respond to these threats, but not if we are comfortable in our denial.”
In the Southeastern region of the United States, where lower wind speeds have discouraged wind farm development, the greatest assets may be found offshore.
Dominion Energy is planning to build 176 giant turbines in the ocean, 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, that it says will generate enough power for 660,000 homes when all are spinning at their peak performance level. Two pilot turbines are already in operation.
Closer to home, Rocky Forge is still facing legal challenges from a group of about a dozen Botetourt and Rockbridge county residents who live anywhere from two to 25 miles away from the wind farm site on North Mountain, about five miles northeast of Eagle Rock.
They oppose the turbines on multiple grounds: that they will mar the scenic landscape, kill birds and bats that fly into their rotating blades, cause other environmental damage and produce low frequency noise and shadow flicker.
In a lawsuit first filed in 2020, the residents accused DEQ of downplaying or ignoring the problems posed by windmills that would be nearly twice as tall as the Wells Fargo tower in downtown Roanoke.
Although a Botetourt County Circuit Court judge turned down many of the allegations, he ruled that DEQ made procedural errors in approving the project for a second time.
The first state approval came in 2017, when Apex planned to build up to 25 turbines as tall as 550 feet. But by the time a deal was struck with Dominion and Virginia two years later, Apex said advances in technology had allowed it to build fewer turbines, but at a greater height.
The company applied for an amended permit, which allowed the turbines to be built up to 680 feet tall. That was approved in 2020, and Apex later came up with its current configuration of 13 turbines at 643 feet.
But by then, the lawsuit had proceeded to trial. Judge Joel Branscom ruled that, in holding a public comment period for the amended permit, DEQ failed to make available all of the documents and studies required to satisfy more than a dozen state requirements for wind farms.
The judge ordered another public comment period, which was held earlier this year. The application was then resubmitted to DEQ, which informed Apex in a brief letter dated Sept. 23 that it had reaffirmed the amended permit.
Opponents have now filed a second challenge of the amended permit, citing what it calls “Rocky Forge’s laissez-faire attitude toward both regulatory compliance and environmental conservatism.”
In a separate lawsuit, the same group of residents are contesting a decision earlier this year by the Botetourt County Board of Zoning Appeals to allow a concrete-making facility in the area.
The plant would be temporary, existing only long enough to produce the concrete needed for the bases of the turbines. Opponents say that it would nonetheless lead to pollution of a nearby creek and cause other damage to the surrounding forestland.
Apex declined to comment on both of the most recently filed lawsuits.