Electric vehicle (EV) sales are predicted to have more than 11% market share by the time 2024 ends, said Allie Kelly (pictured above), citing Bloomberg. And in 2023, EV sales in the United States reached about 1.2 million, a quadrupling of EV sales in four years, she said. Kelly is the executive director of The Ray, a nonprofit that uses highway right of ways to generate solar power and provide flowers for pollinators, among other projects.
“So those are some data points for you to consider as we think about incremental diversification of our portfolio to meet our customers where they’re at, and how to use data to drive strategic investments,” Kelly said to a room of convenience-store retailers and suppliers in early August at CSP’s Outlook Leadership conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
The Ray has completed 13 projects in nine years with the Georgia Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration. Its goal is to focus on safer, cleaner and more productive transportation.
The Ray corridor on I-85 in Georgia, near the Alabama border, is an 18-mile stretch that was designed to be a proving ground for ideas and technologies that The Ray uses that could transform transportation infrastructure in the future. It includes a right-of-way solar field, pollinator meadow, solar-powered vehicle charging, tire safety check station, rubberized asphalt section and more features.
How Can C-Stores Profit?
The right-of-way (ROW) areas, or land that state departments of transportation own and maintain along highways, are appealing locations for renewable energy development for reasons including them being unshaded acreage, ease of access, public ownership status and lack of competing development efforts, according to The Ray.
Private companies—like convenience stores—can develop solar fields and pollinator gardens, and ultimately use these to supply energy, sell energy and help share their brand story, Kelly said.
The Ray can help businesses, like c-stores, identify right-of-way sites where they can build their own solar fields. There are federal government incentives available to make the project more affordable if the site meets certain requirements like keeping the site under 1 megawatt solar power, using American-made solar panels and other materials, building on degraded land and more.
But why would c-stores do this? Here are some of the benefits, according to Kelly:
- The federal government has waived fair-market value on some of these ROW sites. While the states get to decide if they’re going to charge a land fee, most states aren’t interested in charging a fee for the land. “Free land,” Kelly said.
- Energy grid prices have spiked, and weather events can cause outages. Having solar power allows businesses to keep going, even when the grid goes down. “When you develop solar on the right of way and you connect it with your facility, you tap into energy,” Kelly said. “Energy for resilience, and energy so that you begin controlling your energy use and your energy costs…. You can still do business and provide value to your customers and your community.”
- The sites generate energy for your stores and beyond. In some states and markets, you could sell energy back to the grid. “And that is lucrative, because grid pricing is high,” she said.
- C-stores can use these sites to “wrap their brand in clean energy,” Kelly said. Businesses can uses these sites to reach a customer base without changing very much about their core offerings or operations. The solar panels also can be surrounded by wildflowers, which provide habitats for pollinators, and in turn can help local farmers. The Ray can help tell these stories to consumers, Kelly said.
“So this is an opportunity for you to make an investment that is immediately repaid at 50 cents on the dollar, and you tap into resilience, efficiency, reduced energy costs, perhaps revenue from energy sales and you expand the love for your company and your customer base,” Kelly said.
For more information, visit theray.org.
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