CLAY COUNTY — A new roughly $500 million solar development north of West Point is up for public review, giving residents a better idea of what the project would look like as well as a chance to tell the Tennessee Valley Authority whether they think it’s a good investment.
The Hope solar panel and battery storage proposal went public on Tuesday, with TVA announcing that it had begun seeking input from residents on its environmental review of the project. The study area covers 2,210 acres just north of West Point along U.S. Highway 45 Alternate.
While labeled an environmental review, TVA documents say the process is a broad inquiry covering not just ecological impacts but also air quality, water tables, wildlife, existing uses, natural and cultural resources, waste products, impact on the public and on utilities. The area today is “mostly farmland with areas of woody wetlands, deciduous forest, and hay/pasture.”
“This is our first public touchpoint and allows the public to provide input on the scope of our environmental review – resources we should consider that we might not be aware of,” said Elizabeth Smith, TVA’s National Environmental Policy Act specialist. “Sometimes local landowners and community members know about cemeteries or native plants that we don’t. This is the time when the public can provide that.”
The massive area does not necessarily mean the actual solar farm will be that large, with developers routinely acquiring more land than they need so they have flexibility in their layout. Smith said how much is actually taken up will depend on what areas the environmental study finds need avoiding, and declined to make an estimate on how large the plants will be.
Hope would produce 200 megawatts of solar power, enough to supply 60,000 residential homes, according to the online statistics of Origis Energy, the company actually building the facility. It would also have 200 megawatts of storage capacity, helping to smooth out production and keep the lights on overnight or during cloudy days.
“Origis is looking forward to working with our partners at TVA and Clay County to bring another 200 MW of clean, reliable solar power, and 200 MW of energy storage – along with nearly half a billion dollars of economic investment – to the Golden Triangle region,” the company wrote in an emailed statement.
Origis expects the project to break ground in mid-2027 and hopes to bring it online by the end of 2028. TVA hasn’t determined at this point whether it will commit to buying the development’s energy, a choice that in large part depends on what it finds during the environmental study.
In addition to collecting public comments, TVA workers will conduct biological field surveys looking for ecological resources TVA suspects are in the area or any new ones the records missed. They also look for cultural resources and perform a mist net survey, setting up subtle nets in the air to see what animals fly into them. Wetlands will be marked alongside floodplanes, demographic information, traffic noise, and safety hazards.
Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said the organization is helping coordinate Hope’s final preconstruction stages. He said Clay County has agreed to impose a fee in lieu of taxes on the project, which would be equal to one-third of the full tax amount for up to 10 years.
TVA’s public comment period for environmental review will end April 14, and it will put out a collection of public comments and a draft environmental document early 2026. A final environmental document will come out summer 2026, followed at least 30 days later by a decision document announcing whether TVA has decided to follow through on the partnership.
Hope is Origis’ fourth project in the Golden Triangle, coming after Optimist, Golden Triangle I and Golden Triangle II developments. TVA is buying much of that power in a push to expand energy generation to meet fast growth anticipated for the area. Scott Fiedler, one of TVA’s spokespeople, said the company has been racing to keep up with projected demand.
“We’ve seen our region grow faster than the national average economically, outpace it in job growth, population growth,” he said. “And that’s the working age population and those under 20. Our focus now is adding additional energy. Our planning assumption includes about a 5,500 MW build-out of new generation through 2029, and we’ve already completed around 1,400 MW. We need that just to keep up with this growth we’re seeing.”
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