The Department of Energy is “resurrecting” a proposal to build a 10-megawatt solar power field at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an infrastructure manager told an advisory board meeting Monday.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management studied and dropped solar plans after starting to look at it in 2019, said David Bender, the infrastructure services director at the federal complex, told the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board.
Solar was previously considered uneconomical in part because as a federal government agency the DOE could not take advantage of renewable energy tax credits, Bender said. “We can’t enjoy our own subsidies,” Bender said, adding it was cheaper to buy electricity off the grid.
Now, however, Savannah River and its electricity provider, Dominion Energy, is taking a fresh look at the project, Bender said.
President Joe Biden in Executive Order 14057 called upon federal facilities to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 and hopefully achieve “net zero” by 2045. Bender cited the net zero goal in his presentation to the advisory board.
The solar field could be installed between fiscal 2023 and 2027, Bender said.
In addition, Savannah River has ordered 62 electric vehicles that should arrive sometime in fiscal 2023, Bender said. The DOE complex will be installing 16 charging stations to accommodate the new vehicles, he added. Charging stations are tough to come by these days, because of difficulty in securing vendors, Bender said.
