A couple of Wythe County solar projects are hoping to get connected soon.
Kansas City, Missouri, based Savion spent several months last year explaining its plans for a solar farm on 858 acres in Foster Falls. Company representatives explained to supervisors, after several community members pushed back with fears about the impact on caves, erosion and threats to the viewshed, that 238,000 panel would be installed.
In November 2020, Dominion Energy signed a deal with Savion to buy 75 megawatts of solar power from the Wythe County project.
Savion plans to begin construction later this year and is targeted to begin producing energy at the end of 2022.
While Savion was making most of the headlines with its plans, another project was quietly gathering steam.
Caden Energix, based in Israel, began looking into land near Wytheville, conducting initial surveys in October 2019. The company plans to build a 20-megawatt solar facility on a 154-acre piece of land along Nye Road.
The tract of land has a small portion, zoned agricultural, in the Wytheville town limits. The county doesn’t have zoning regulations.
Energix notes that the project will use traditional solar panels to produce electricity and tie in with Appalachian Power infrastructure. The company said it would attach the panels at a fixed tilt and designed the build to minimize land disturbance and avoid wetlands and streams.
David Richards, a spokesman for Energix US, LLC, said the Wythe “project is in advanced development and we expect constuction to begin during March.”
