RICHMOND, Va.—Last month, a couple of weeks before the end of the regular legislative session, Virginia lawmakers killed a bill to reform the state’s process approving utility-scale solar projects despite achieving some rare support from both the environmental and agricultural communities. Continued concern from localities over a loss of control won out.

The bill would have required localities to approve solar projects using a model ordinance devised by the state’s Commission on Electric Utility Regulation prohibiting “unreasonable restriction,” including bans, which solar developers said were becoming common across the state.

The bill also would have created the Virginia Energy Facility Review Board to recommend approval or denial of projects. Under the bill, a locality’s decision could only have been appealed by the project applicant, and in court, the locality would have had to bear the burden of proving the review board’s opinion was incorrect. 

But the bill failed.

Revisions to the bill switched local planning to include in their comprehensive plans, which would have guided development decisions, targets to meet the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) goals, which seeks to decarbonize the state’s electric grid by 2050. The Virginia Department of Energy would craft the targets on a regional basis. The updated version also kept a collection of universities that would research proposals.

The bill died after the Virginia Association of Counties lobbied lawmakers over a worry the state would be dictating to localities how to plan for and approve solar projects in order to meet the VCEA goals. Rural lawmakers also argued their districts’ flat land would bear the brunt of that development compared to urban areas.

“Time and time again, when you pass these bills, you say, ‘This is great for Virginia,’ but you’re putting it on the localities in Southside and Southwest Virginia, below the James River, where we have farmers, and big trees and expanse and great oxygen and great people,” Sen. Bill Stanley (R-Franklin). “We’d like a collaborative effort not to be told what we should be doing with our lands and what our people should be doing.”

The bill was opposed by leading lawmakers from both parties, representing suburban and rural counties, even after it had been amended to drop the requirement for a model ordinance and the review board opinions, leaving final decisions on solar and battery storage facilities in the hands of localities, requiring them only to include targets for achieving statewide clean energy goals. 

Opponents pointed to a provision in the amended version of the legislation that would have enabled local courts to reverse a county’s project denial if a developer appealed. They heeded concerns in rural communities that building utility-scale solar projects on what had been farmland was changing the character of their communities. And conservatives, including Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, have never been fully supportive of the VCEA. 

Youngkin called the act “a quagmire” this year and signaled a desire to keep localities in control of solar siting during his annual State of the Commonwealth address. 

Months of work on the legislation ended after an hour-long debate on the Senate floor. The House version died in a subcommittee the week prior despite members of the Virginia Farm Bureau, Virginia Forestry Association and several other groups voicing support for the project.

“The dispute here is not between the state and localities, it’s between the localities and property owners,” said Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville), a renewable energy proponent and sponsor of the Senate legislation. “I’m not so certain another bill another year will be as friendly as this one of trying to get people the information they need and trying to get to where we need to be eventually” with regard to the VCEA’s goals on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he said. 

The solar siting legislation was endorsed by the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation after solar developers became concerned over the ability to build projects and meet goals in the VCEA, which requires the state’s two regulated utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company, to seek approval of 16,100 megawatts and 600 megawatts of solar, respectively. The VCEA has battery storage requirements in smaller amounts.

In recent years, county denials of solar projects had increased to 40 percent, amid concern with projects taking up rural agricultural and forested land.

House Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) was concerned about impacts to rural communities during an election year in which the Democrats’ 51-49 majority in the House is up for grabs. GOP senators representing rural areas, meanwhile, remained concerned about state mandates and a loss of local authority, even after the bill was amended. 

“If you deny a solar project, the court overturns the locality and the locality must site that project,” Sen. Richard Stuart (R-King George) said in the Senate debate. “Well if that’s not taking away local authority, I don’t know what is.”

Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) argued in support of the bill by pointing out that state code requires comprehensive plans to include several other measures, including “a transportation plan, we also require them to plan for designation of various types of public private development …There’s like four or five more paragraphs of things that we require localities to do.”

Sen. Russet Perry (D-Loudoun), whose district includes rural areas and D.C. exurbs getting swallowed by data center development, voted against the bill. 

“I just don’t think that’s something my constituents support,” Perry said in an interview with Inside Climate News. “I know some people disagree. We have a lot of issues with solar [projects] and where we’re going to put them. Obviously, I’m a supporter of the Clean Economy Act.”

Jay Ford, Virginia policy manager for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the group “was extremely disappointed that the Senate chose not to move forward.” The foundation strongly supports development of renewable energy, given the fact that about one-third of nitrogen pollution in the Chesapeake Bay comes from air emissions from burning fossil fuels. The bill, he added, “represented months of hard work and compromise from scores of stakeholders and legislative leaders.”

“We need to be developing plans for how we increase distributed generation like rooftop solar in our cities as well as utility scale,” Ford continued. “If the General Assembly legislates for one industry instead of the clean energy needs of the entire Commonwealth, we will continue to see a rural versus urban divide on this issue.”

The Virginia Association of Counties opposed taking away local input on comprehensive plan development, and a representative for AES, a developer, voiced concern over an inability to address issues with PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, which is being called on to enact several reforms to clear a backlog of clean energy projects awaiting approval. 

A Different Option

Other solar developers, like the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition, backed a completely different proposal from Del. Candi Mundon King (D-Prince William).

Her bill, which passed the House, would have required localities to classify solar projects as eligible for a special use permit. The bill would place requirements on counties, including setback and height limits, but still give them final decision authority.

But a Senate committee rejected the bill, with Sen. Jeremy McPike (D-Prince William) joining Republicans in opposition, and Sen. Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) abstaining from the vote.

“Action by the Senate is critical to meeting the rapid growth in demand with reliable and affordable energy solutions and achieving state clean energy goals with projects that bring jobs and tax revenue to localities,” Evan Vaughan, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition, said prior to the committee’s vote. He added that the bill would have allowed localities to consider variances, or additional requirements from developers in order to get permit approval. 

Joe Lerch, director of local government policy for the Virginia Association of Counties, said that even though localities could still deny a project, Mundon King’s bill amounted to “basically writing a statewide ordinance into local code.”

Research, Research, Research

Aaron Berryhill, now the solar program manager for Virginia Energy, has updated earlier research this year to show that solar projects continue to be built predominantly on forested, crop and pasture land.

His 2021 study provided a baseline understanding of solar’s impact on forest and farmland. It found that solar had been built on 13,842 acres, with about 90 percent going on forested, crop and pasture land. This year’s update found that solar has grown to 30,632 acres, with about 89 percent coming on those land types.

“This rapid growth is likely to continue for some time, as utility-scale solar is now the least expensive form of new electricity supply in the United States,” Berryhill and the other researchers wrote in the update, adding the average acreage needed per megawatt dropped from 7.21 to 6.72 acres. 

“Given the variety of local land use factors that are considered when approving solar facilities, local and regional planners have an important role in providing clear guidance on how the development of solar facilities can be integrated within a local community while also supporting Virginia’s overall energy needs,” the report added.

But an outdated aspect of solar development research involves calculation of the local economic benefit, since current estimates are based on materials and construction used for natural gas plants, William Shobe, an emeritus research professor of public policy at the University of Virginia, said in an interview.

Solar development may take away from activity in the local agricultural economy when land is converted from farmland for solar projects, but solar panels don’t come with an increased need for school space or public safety capacity, Shobe said, citing the social costs of new housing as an example.

Nor does solar emit the tons of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt of electricity coal and natural gas create, Shobe added, meaning people “don’t have to pay for the damage (fossil fuels) do.”

“We would be paying more than we needed for electricity” if we didn’t build more solar and wind, said Shobe. The state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission included increased power supplies from wind and solar in its modeling to meet growing data center electricity needs because they are cheaper than coal and natural gas, despite critics questioning the reliability of renewables. 

Solar hasn’t had its “heyday. It’s only just arrived,” Shobe said. “You certainly need to have storage.”

Halifax County, honored by the conservative pro-solar development group Energy Right for the local economic benefits it generated through solar development, has created partnerships with the South-Central Virginia Business Coalition to ensure local workers are used to promote local economic benefits. 

Still, in comments highlighting the lingering opposition to utility-scale solar projects, Halifax County County Administrator Scott Simpson, said of the concept of a model ordinance that had been part of Deeds’ original bill: “We’re fine with it, as long as our ordinance is the model ordinance.” 

Charles Paullin

Contributor

Charles Paullin is a Richmond, Virginia-based reporter focusing on energy and environment issues. He’s won several awards for his previous work covering state policy with the Virginia Mercury and local news with the Northern Virginia Daily in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. His first reporting gig was with the New Britain Herald in Connecticut, a couple years after attending the University of Hartford, where he first studied sports journalism.