TVA Solar Program Promotes Preservation and Renewable Energy Projects Alabama, Kentucky
CASE STUDY
Commission (AHC). TVA initiated the Section 106 process early in its design planning and engaged in extensive discussions with consulting parties on appropriate identification efforts to ensure environmental and historic properties could be identified and inform project design to the greatest extent possible. As a result of these efforts, the project was designed to avoid 16 archaeological sites that range from precontact occupations to sites associated with the Pond Springs plantation and postbellum sharecropping system, as well as two potentially sensitive cultural resource areas. Consultation also resulted in TVA conducting additional research to identify the Wheeler Station Rural Historic District (WSRHD), encompassing the historic archaeological and architectural resources and surrounding landscape. TVA and AHC developed a memorandum of agreement to minimize and mitigate adverse effects to the historic district. Minimization will include large visual buffers to minimize adverse effects to historic properties within the viewshed, and the development of a plan to establish a native plant habitat across some of the avoided sites and buffer setbacks, with the dual purpose of protecting significant sites that previously suffered from erosion and promoting TVA’s biodiversity initiatives. As mitigation, TVA will produce a
Model of the traveling exhibit on the WSRHD (TVA)
traveling exhibit on the WSRHD with a specific focus on the frequently underrepresented history of African American life in late-19th to mid-20th century Lawrence County. The travelling exhibit will be used for public outreach events at the Pond Springs Historic House and brought to underserved communities in North Alabama. From this example, TVA is developing other ways to implement large solar arrays that will avoid potential effects on archaeological sites. Future plans will involve the installation of a 300-acre solar array on an existing capped coal combustion residual landfill at Shawnee Fossil Plant in Kentucky and into the artificial turf that lines the landfill cap, thereby avoiding adverse effects to archaeological resources. While the National Register-listed Shawnee Fossil Plant is within the viewshed of the array, consultation with the Kentucky State Historic Preservation Officer resulted in TVA determining that it would not introduce an adverse effect. TVA’s efforts represent how the implementation of renewable energy initiatives can work in productive harmony with historic properties when considered thoughtfully and early in the Section 106 consultation process.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has historically been invested in renewable energy with the utilization of hydroelectric power at its inception. Today, TVA produces more than 8,200 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, including solar capacity totaling more than 2,800 MW when all committed solar projects come online. TVA is working toward a goal of 10,000 MW of solar by 2035 from both TVA-built facilities and power purchase agreements. Toward this goal, the agency has implemented several process improvements to its Section 106 reviews for these types of projects, which
TVA Power Purchase Agreement solar site (TVA)
has resulted in early coordination with consulting parties and a greater flexibility in design to avoid adverse effects to historic properties. One example is the North Alabama Solar project, where TVA has proposed to construct a roughly 200 MW solar photovoltaic facility with an electrical substation and possible battery energy storage system near Lawrence County, Alabama, adjacent to National Register- listed plantation sites General Joseph Wheeler’s Pond Springs and Bride’s Hill, both owned by the Alabama Historical
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IN A SPIRIT OF STEWARDSHIP: A Report on Federal Historic Properties • 2024 | 55
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