"A northern Florida town is at the center of a clash between renewable energy developers and residents of a historically Black community — one that highlights an emerging rift between President Biden's environmental justice and clean energy goals.
Many Archer residents are descendants of slaves and some of the nation's earliest Black landowners.
And they want nothing to do with a 50-megawatt solar and 12-MW battery storage project proposed by Origis Energy and Gainesville Regional Utilities, or GRU. The project would span roughly 600 acres, and developers said the panels would be tucked behind a buffer of trees. Yet in residents' eyes, a utility-scale solar array is no different from a coal-fired power plant: a blemish on a community whose roots date back to before the Civil War.
The stakes are high. Electric companies need to meet carbon-reduction goals as the Biden administration doubles down on clean energy, and the low cost of solar can make utility-scale projects attractive. But renewable energy developers are bumping up against opposition similar to what has occurred with many fossil-fuel-powered plants."
