The agricultural community of Bethel now has a new type of farm in its midst — solar. 

Visible from U.S. 276, the 8.2-acre property sandwiched between the Bethel Community Cemetery and Exxon-Mobil gas station holds more than 6,000 solar panels, each 6 feet, 5 inches long and 3 feet, 3 inches wide. The whole array has a size of 1.5 megawatts, a rating that allows it to produce 2.9 million kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power 240 average U.S. homes.

Get off the U.S. 74 exit for Dillsboro, descend the steep hill to the light, turn right for a 1-mile drive down Haywood Road and you’ll soon notice a bright-colored sign announcing that you’ve reached the turnoff for the Jackson County Green Energy Park.

In response to public opposition to its proposed 45-mile Foothills Transmission Line, Duke Energy has settled on a revised plan that will eliminate the need for the transmission line and Campobello substation.

By Avram Friedman • Guest Columnist

By proposing to replace its Lake Julian coal plant in Asheville with a new natural gas/fracking-fired mega power plant in Western North Carolina, Duke Energy is moving in an anachronistic direction that inhibits the transformation to energy efficiency and renewable energy needed to address rising energy costs and climate change.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park marked a milestone last week with the unveiling of 10 new pieces of equipment to make transportation in the park more energy-efficient. 

A project four years in the making, the new purchases — made using a $239,000 grant — are just the first phase in a three-year plan to reduce emissions in the park.

Solar power is on the rise across the U.S., and a campaign recently launched in Western North Carolina is urging mountain folk to join the trend. 

“You can only do what you can afford to do, and now that it’s affordable, people are taking advantage of it and getting involved,” said Avram Friedman, executive director of The Canary Coalition, one of the two groups collaborating on the Solarize WNC campaign. “I think we’ve sort of reached that critical mass when things are turning around.”

Waynesville has emerged victorious in a nail-baiting quest for cheaper wholesale power to resell to its own electric customers.

The way is now open for oil and gas companies to start drilling in North Carolina, but no wells are going to pop up any time soon. Besides the time lag automatically built into the permitting process, low natural gas prices will likely discourage development and a pending lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of the very commission that wrote the rules could invalidate them.

If Waynesville has a dirty little secret, it’s this: a cash cow runs through its power lines.

Of course, it’s not dirty and not a secret — not really. Town leaders don’t hide the fact they have a lucrative electric system. It reaps over $1 million in profits annually for the town.

When the Campus Conservation Nationals Competition wrapped up this spring, Western Carolina University came out near the top of a nationwide field of 109 schools. Schools didn’t receive specific rankings, but WCU made the top 10 with a 13.7 percent reduction in its residential halls’ energy use over the three-week competition period. 

“A common adage in the world of energy conservation is: Human energy change is low-hanging fruit, but the fruit grows back, so as we get new students in, we have to continue to improve our programs,” said Lauren Bishop, chief sustainability officer at WCU.