By Stephen Smoot
The company behind the project, MN8 Energy, serves as one of the largest independent renewable energy companies in the United States. Many other major players in green energy have been owned by traditional energy producing companies also invested in extracting and producing oil and gas.
MN8’s “predecessor” company name was Goldman Sachs Renewable Power LLC. Now independent of the financial giant in terms of ownership, the Delaware-based company offered its stock publicly initially in 2022. Its Securities and Exchange Commission filing indicates that underwriting entities involved in its initial public offering included Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Securities, and other major financial institutions.
The original company came into existence in 2017 when, according to its 2022 SEC filing, “significant declines in the cost of solar modules and equipment had suddenly resulted in a new economic reality: that energy could be produced from the sun in many parts of the U.S. at the same or lower prices as energy produced from fossil fuels.”
Its filing did not add that the financial incentives for solar facility production at the time included an Investment Tax Credit that could defer up to 30 percent of the installation cost of a solar energy system. It applied to both equipment and installation costs.
Wind power also was seen as insufficiently consistent to serve as a major investment. The SEC filing stated that “We have focused on solar because it is a mature technology that produces a much lower expected energy production volatility than other renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.”
MN8’s SEC filing went on to state that it also determined in 2017 that“Solar energy also held the distinct advantage of being able to be produced with mature technology that could be deployed in almost any location and in customized sizes. Concurrently, many leading private and public sector enterprises began setting ambitious targets for reducing their carbon emissions.”
Placement of solar facilities was seen in the filing as key to where to place them physically. MN8’s 2022 SEC filing stated that they expected their future enterprise customers “would increasingly prefer to purchase solar energy that was produced on site or in proximity to where these customers were located as a means to lower their cost of energy, meet their carbon reduction targets and exert more control over where and how their energy was being produced.”
Location in the Eastern Panhandle could be explained by MN8’s business model, which calls for “locations where we believe they will have a higher value, such as places that have higher prevailing power prices, have strong and consistent solar irradiance, offer additional revenue streams such as renewable energy credits (“RECs”) or have more barriers to operation or development of competing assets.”
MN8 has worked to develop partnerships in the Mountain State, including West Virginia University. That came in a $300,000 donation to open examination of “agrivoltaics,” or the wedding of solar power production with viable agricultural uses of the land.
“At MN8 Energy, we’re committed to pioneering innovative approaches that maximize both renewable energy production and land stewardship,” Tim Seck, senior vice president and head of project development at MN8 Energy, was quoted in a WVU news release
He also stated that “Our partnership with WVU’s Davis College represents a significant investment in the future of agrivoltaics, where we can develop best practices that benefit agricultural productivity, ecological health and clean energy generation simultaneously. We’re excited to support the next generation of professionals who will lead the renewable energy industry forward with sustainable solutions.”
The company has multiple projects planned or underway in the state. These include a 145 MW facility in Mingo County, a second 140 MW project for a surface mine site on the Mingo and Logan county line, a 90 MW microgrid to power a titanium production plant in Jackson County, and a 90 MW facility in Kanawha County.
