The Northern Virginia Daily

September 19, 2009

Representative updates council on pros of solar energy

By Ben Orcutt

FRONT ROYAL -- The town is moving closer to becoming a primary site for solar energy production, according to the Solar Electric Power Association.

Julia Hamm, executive director of Washington-based SEPA -- a nonprofit solar information-gathering entity -- briefed members of the Town Council on Monday about how plans for a local solar farm operating under the name of SolAVerde Inc. and a related manufacturing plant will help put the town on the national solar map.

SolAVerde is planning to eventually produce 100 megawatts of solar electricity, starting with a 27-acre farm on the Avtex Fibers Superfund site, now known as the Royal Phoenix.

A former rayon manufacturing plant, Avtex closed in 1989 due to environmental pollution. The 440-acre site is bordered in part by the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and Kendrick Lane.

Greg Horton, owner of Arctic Air Refrigeration in Front Royal, is partnering with Leesburg developer William Lauterbach on the project, which also includes a solar racking assembly plant to be located in the Old Virginia Industrial Park on Kendrick Lane adjacent to the Avtex property.

SolAVerde's plans to produce 100 megawatts of electricity "automatically would put Virginia, with that single installation, as the number two state in the country," Hamm said.

"Very quickly, we're gonna see the cost solar of electricity becoming equivalent to or less than that of the traditional power plant," Hamm added. "What you're talking about doing is very significant."

Lauterbach spoke in a similar vein following Hamm's presentation.

"As you can see, Front Royal is on the front line of where solar alternative/solar energy is and our plan's pretty much on track," he said. "I think the prices are coming pretty close to grid parity. We are presently actually working with the [Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority] on land at Avtex. It's kind of interesting that we [are] gonna put a solar field on a brownfield, which I think is actually almost kind of a paradox of life."

Lauterbach said the manufacturing plant should be online next month, with ground being broken on the solar farm in January.

When buildout is complete on the portion of the 27 acres that is available for use, the solar farm will produce about five megawatts of power, Lauterbach said, adding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is hoping to make more of the land at Royal Phoenix available as soon as possible as remediation of the old Avtex site continues.

Katherine Lose, the EPA's remedial manager for the Avtex site, told the Town Council on Monday that the plan is for the agency to concentrate on cleaning the site in a north to south direction and signing off on making portions of the site available for use as sections are ready.

Lauterbach said the manufacturing facility should create 350 jobs, with the solar field pushing the number to 1,000 over the next five years.

"I think we're all really excited about this and we really appreciate your working with the town, working with the EDA and the EPA," Councilman Thomas E. Conkey said. "I think a gentleman who is investing $200-plus million in town deserves a mister. So, Mr. Lauterbach, thank you very much."

Councilman Thomas H. Sayre, who has met individually with Lauterbach, asked him when he thinks SolAVerde will expand to the Happy Creek Technology Park.

"I think what we want to do is concentrate it on the Avtex site as long as we can and then from there we'll move to the Happy Creek site," Lauterbach said. "We're actually engineering all of it, Happy Creek included."