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General Assembly bills that would standardize what criteria localities are to use when evaluating applications for new solar farms or energy storage facilities are moving forward.

Senate Bill 1190, sponsored by state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, would establish a “Virginia Energy Facility Review Board” that would draft a model ordinance to be adopted by localities for the permitting and zoning of “critical interconnection projects.” The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee voted unanimously on Jan. 24 to incorporate Deeds’ bill with one by state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Richmond, that had proposed requiring localities to adopt zoning ordinance amendments allowing a special exception for solar farms or energy storage facilities that comply with 12 criteria, including a 150- to 300-foot buffer from the nearest edge of the equipment to the nearest occupied building.

Additional criteria in VanValkenburg’s original bill, dubbed SB 1114, included a prohibition on removing topsoil, wildlife corridors where needed, a written decommissioning agreement, compliance with Virginia Department of Environmental Quality stormwater regulations and a requirement that visual impacts to agricultural preservation areas, public parks and historic structures “be minimized.”

The Commerce and Labor Committee then voted 9-6 on Jan. 24 to advance the substitute SB 1190 to the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.

State Sens. Deeds, Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, David Marsden, D-Burke, Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, Jeremy McPike, D-Woodbridge, Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, and Lamont Bagby, D-Richmond, voted to advance the bill over the objection of Sens. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, Bill Stanley, R-Moneta, Ryan McDougle, R-Mechanicsville, Bryce Reeves, R-Fredericksburg, Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, and Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg.

Under SB 1190, the review board would review each locality’s ordinance for compliance with the state’s clean energy policy, and would substitute the model ordinance for the locality’s if a locality does not within 60 days adopt an ordinance deemed compliant.

The bill would require any solar developer whose project is deemed a “critical interconnection” to apply to the review board for a determination as to whether the project qualifies as a “project of statewide significance” and whether it complies with the proposed host locality’s solar ordinance.

The proposed review board would issue its opinion on a proposed solar farm within 90 days of receiving a developer’s application. The bill would require the host locality to issue its final decision regarding any zoning change or conditional use permit within six months of the review board issuing its opinion, and explain in writing if its decision diverges from the review board’s recommendation. Developers would have the option to appeal a local denial to that locality’s Circuit Court.

SB 1190 notes it comes as a recommendation from the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation, or CEUR, which had voted 7-5 on Jan. 6 to recommend the legislation be drafted.

CEUR contends new legislation is needed to meet the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act’s mandate that Dominion Energy transition to 100% carbon-free energy sources by 2045. The body, which consists of 10 legislators and three non-legislator members, came into existence in 2003 from legislation allowing the transition to retail competition among electric utilities like Dominion and had been dormant for nearly six years until being reactivated in 2023 to address rising statewide electricity demand.

Currently, town and city councils and county boards of supervisors have broad discretion in the amount of time they take and the criteria they use to evaluate solar farm applications. A multistate coalition of solar, wind and battery storage developers known as the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition, or MAREC, which has been advising CEUR, says the patchwork of local regulations has resulted in 33 solar farm proposals over the past 18 months being denied or withdrawn across Virginia.

“Over half of Virginia’s counties have signaled to solar energy that they are closed for business,” said Evan Vaughan, executive director of MAREC, in a news release applauding SB 1114’s advancing. “There are 55 counties and cities that have either banned or made it difficult and costly to develop utility-scale solar projects. Others have no ordinances at all to regulate solar projects. We acknowledge localities that have welcomed solar projects, but the current situation makes the development process inconsistent and unpredictable for localities and developers alike at the very time that Virginia needs more clean energy.” 

Isle of Wight County has approved 11 solar farms to date, including the 2,200-acre, 240-megawatt Sycamore Cross solar farm in 2024 that would be the county’s largest and span the Isle of Wight-Surry county line at its westernmost edge. Also last year, Isle of Wight supervisors voted to reject the 44-megawatt Moonlight solar farm that would have spanned 231 fenced acres at Burwells Bay and Moonlight roads, and rejected a 3-megawatt solar farm proposed for 23 acres off Old Stage Highway.

While MAREC contends its goal isn’t to take away local authority, Isle of Wight County supervisors say that’s exactly what the proposed legislation would do.

“Any time you’re trying to strip localities of their ability to govern and represent the citizens I think is the wrong direction to go in,” said Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors Chairman Don Rosie during a discussion of HB 2126 at the supervisors’ Jan. 16 meeting. 

“At the end of the day when there’s an issue because our citizens don’t want it in their back yard or other issues that come up that it seems to me that it’s crafted in such a way that it’s going to make it look like the localities are to blame for why we have an energy crisis,” said Supervisor Joel Acree. “I mean, they’re building data centers, the energy demand is just continually growing.”

A companion bill to SB 1114, dubbed House Bill 2438, also advanced from the House of Delegates’ Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns by a 12-8 vote on Jan. 24. A floor substitute had been printed as of Jan. 27.

The bill’s sponsor, Del. Candice Mundon King, D-Dumfries, joined nine other Democrats and one Republican in an 11-8 vote to advance it.

It stipulates that ground-mounted solar farms “shall be permitted” on agricultural-zoned land, provided it complies with the proposed setbacks, and would strike “unless a local ordinance provides otherwise” from existing state law.