Construction is underway on Rocky Forge, a nearly 80 megawatt wind farm on North Mountain in Botetourt County.
A couple of ridges away in Gala, government officials and community boosters gathered Saturday with Apex Clean Energy and its contractors to sign a 254-foot wind turbine blade. It's a celebration of a milestone as the companies begin the process of erecting 13 wind turbines and mounting blades on them.
It's taken 12 years to get to this point since Apex first announced its plan to build the wind farm – and seven more since landowner Jerry Fraley began pursuing the idea in 2007.
"I feel like I just opened up a big pit of coal, got it loaded, got it on the railroad car and I'm waiting on the check," said Fraley, a third-generation Wise County coal miner.
In the 1960s, Fraley began acquiring what turned out to be 10,000 acres of land in Botetourt County. Transmission lines cut through the property, and he saw an opportunity to pursue a clean energy project while keeping the rest of the land for wildlife conservation and hunting.
Fraley negotiated with three previous energy companies before landing on Apex Clean Energy, based in Charlottesville. Rocky Forge has more three gigawatts wind, battery and other renewable energy projects in operation, and a portfolio of more than 50 gigawatt of projects in development, under construction, or in operations.
Rocky Forge Wind faced years of local opposition. But it received approval from the county Board of Supervisors and overcame three lawsuits.
"Our hope is this isn't the last, but it is the first, and certainly a good marker of what can be done," said Apex Clean Energy CEO Ken Young.
However, Young doesn't see a coming wave of wind energy projects on the scale of what Virginia has seen with solar development.
"How do we make it work here? We're on top of a ridge. That creates expense," Young said. "Can there be additional wind projects in Virginia? Yes, I believe so. The technology is so much better than when we started this development. For people that are against it, I think the answer is because of the benign wind regime and the expense of the projects, there's not going to be wind turbines everywhere."
Apex expects to finish construction of the wind farm and begin producing energy by the end of the year. Google will purchase its power. Botetourt County officials expect $25 million in tax payments over the life of the project.
