Virginia nonprofit Energy Right provides clean energy education to rural Virginians, focusing on the benefits of solar power. The organization regularly shares ordinance recommendations to ensure these become a reality in every Virginia locality.
With a conservative perspective, Energy Right hopes to make information about wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and other alternative sources readily available in harder-to-reach parts of the Old Dominion. The goal is to help assuage some of the resistance to switching to clean energy sources.
“Rural Virginia must realize the opportunity that energy development brings as well as the opportunity cost of denying energy investments,” Skyler Zunk, Energy Right’s CEO and
co-founder, wrote in a piece for Cardinal News.
Photo Courtesy Energy Right
Recent advancements in Virginia allow for the capture and distribution of clean, reliable, and affordable energy sources. This new reliance on clean energy sources is likely to add billions of dollars to rural communities that choose to take on the new opportunities.
Moving to clean energy is particularly important in rural communities, as they are also more likely to see more frequent or longer power outages due to aging power lines and equipment.
Virginia’s Department of Energy points to the Commonwealth’s natural energy resources as valuable assets that significantly contribute to the state’s economic well-being.
The Nature Conservancy has estimated about 8.76 million acres of potentially solar-suitable land, of which approximately a quarter conflict with conservation priorities, resulting in about 6.48 million acres of potentially solar-suitable land.
Those resources, spread across the state from Abingdon to Newport News and all spots in between, are a remarkable new tool to boost rural economies and bring new, high-tech careers that attract young people to those communities.
Photo Courtesy Energy Right
To hit state goals, Virginia may only need to dedicate 160,000 acres to solar, conservatively. That 160,000 acres represent just 2% of the solar-suitable land and just 0.5% of Virginia’s total land.
“Virginia is ready for an energy revolution like never before. Recent advancements allow for the capture and distribution of an abundant, clean, reliable, and affordable energy source,” Zunk wrote in the Cardinal News. “The expansion of this homegrown energy will inject billions into rural communities.”
“Virginians must internalize that an ‘all-of-the-above energy’ strategy means everything — not just a preferred few energy sources,” he continued. “We can reverse the rural population outflow and create generational opportunity by unleashing Virginia energy and utilizing natural resources to the benefit of our communities.”
Photo Courtesy Energy Right
A move to fully utilize Virginia’s natural resources can not only bolster the economy and job market in small towns and rural communities but also create a more stable and healthier power grid for all Virginians to enjoy. Energy Right continues to work to educate more state residents about the many benefits of clean energy.
