Dominion Energy opens solar facility at Ivy Landfill

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — Last month, Dominion Energy’s newest solar facility went online, producing enough to power 750 homes at its peak.

It is one of over 70 solar facilities Dominion has in Virginia, but what excites the company about its newest facility is its location — on top of the Ivy Landfill.

“This is an exciting new trend for us,” Dominion spokesperson Tim Eberly told Cville Right Now. “We’re generating clean energy on land that has little to no other options and has an environmentally-challenged past. So, it’s really exciting to pair that eco-friendly use with a former landfill.”

Ivy Landfill Solar is Dominion’s first solar facility on a closed landfill. The project was acquired from the Community Power Group in January 2023, which had been developing the facility for at least a year up to that point.

Dominion broke ground on the facility in March 2025, and just over a year later, the site went online in mid-April of this year.

The three-megawatt site feeds directly into Dominion’s electric grid, with Eberly saying its customers in the surrounding area will “most likely be the ones taking advantage of this power generation.”

The plant is a part of Dominion’s commitment to clean energy and is a part of what Eberly described as a much larger transition in the energy industry. Dominion opened its first solar facility a decade ago and now spots the third-largest solar fleet among utility companies in the country.

The new facility also helps Dominion stay in compliance with the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which Eberly said is the state law “guiding our clean energy transition.” The law’s provisions require the development of both large and small-scale solar facilities, as well as the development of solar facilities on previously developed land. The development of facilities on landfills satisfies those requirements.

Still, Eberly made it clear Dominion is excited about this new initiative, regardless of any legal requirements. The company is currently developing three more facilities on landfills in the Commonwealth, located in Henrico County, Middlesex County and James City County respectively.

The initiative comes amidst “unprecedented” energy demand, which Eberly said hasn’t been seen since World War II. He credited this in part to the large cluster of data centers in Northern Virginia, the rise of electric vehicles and the influx of manufacturing facilities in the Commonwealth.

“In the next 20 years, we’re expecting energy demand in Virginia to double,” Eberly said. “So, in order to meet that demand, we have to generate twice as much energy. And so, what we’re planning to do over the next two decades is to essentially do that — to add 33 gigawatts of new power generation all across Virginia.”

Long-term, Eberly said the plan is for 53%, or 17.5 gigawatts, of that new energy production to come from solar. All-in-all, he called solar “a significant part of the big picture” when it comes to Dominion’s plan to address the energy demand in Virginia.

As Dominion continues to combat the rising energy needs in Virginia, Eberly made it clear that renewable energy will continue to play a major role for Dominion.

“We’re all in on solar energy, and offshore winds and renewables in general,” Eberly said.