Potomac Edison, Mon Power break ground on solar site

On Monday, Potomac Edison and Mon Power, both subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp., announced they had begun construction on their third solar site in West Virginia.

The utility-scale solar site in Berkeley County will repurpose a former ash landfill into a clean energy electricity generation facility, officials said. The Marlowe solar project is on a 36-acres property along I-81 and the Potomac River. FirstEnergy previously removed more than three million tons of ash from the property and closed the landfill in 2022 to make way for the solar farm, officials said.

“The redevelopment of this site into a clean, renewable energy source is aligned with our commitment to support economic growth in West Virginia as well as our efforts to build a more sustainable future for the communities we serve,” Dan Rossero, vice president of FirstEnergy’s West Virginia Generation, said.

The facility is expected to be completed in 2025 and is anticipated to produce up to 5.75 MW of renewable power, enough to power nearly 1,000 homes.

Officials said the project is part of the two companies’ West Virginia solar program supporting bill passed in 2020 by the legislature that authorizes electric utilities to own and operation up to 200 MW of solar renewable generation facilities. The addition of the new solar farm also encourages economic development in the state, officials said, as more companies require a portion of their electricity to come from renewable sources.

The Marlowe facility is the third of five planned solar projects that will generate a total of 50 MW of electricity, the first phase of the companies’ plan to develop 200 MW over time. The first solar project in Maidsville was completed in January and the second, in Rivesville, began construction in March.

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