Kentucky coal company announces plans to build the state’s largest solar farm
A dump truck moves dirt and rock from a mountaintop removal coal mine in Kentucky. CREDIT: AP Photo/Roger Alford Berkeley Energy Group, the coal company behind the project, billed it as the first large-scale solar farm in the Appalachian region, which has been hit hard by the decades-long decline in the U.S. coal industry. The company, in partnership with EDF Renewable Energy, is currently conducting feasibility studies for the project on two reclaimed strip mines, both located in the eastern part of the state. Berkeley Energy Group estimates that the solar farm could produce as much as 50 or 100 megawatts of electricity, which would be five to ten times the size of Kentucky’s largest solar farm . As a candidate, President Trump seized on the high unemployment among coal miners in Appalachia, promising that he would bring coal mining back if elected president. In office, he has signed a handful of orders and laws that he argues will help bolster the declining industry — thou