How a New State Panel Might Take Control of Local Zoning Permits for Solar Farms

Similar bills were proposed and failed in 2024. The legislative Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR), newly energized with a strong renewable energy bias, has spent a year on a stakeholder process seeking to calm complaints from local governments, agriculture and forestry industry representatives and green energy skeptics.

The push for the bill is coming from renewable industry representatives and environmental activists who complain that good projects are being rejected for what they deem “bad reasons” by local authorities.

The most recent version of the proposed legislation was discussed at a CEUR meeting January 6, one the few public meetings this week in the waterless Virginia Capitol. The idea seemed to be drawing just as much fire as it was a year ago. In perhaps the clearest sign the bill starts with a fever, Speaker of the House Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) expressed firm opposition.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to kill this bill if it comes before the body,” Scott said at one point Monday. But the bill draft presented at that meeting might not be the final version, as supporters were amending it on the fly as late as that day. Here is the version presented. The introduced version, if and when it appears, could differ.

The 30-page draft was accompanied by a summary which itself was a page and a half of dense, single spaced and very technical text. Under the best of circumstances, a bill that complicated and confusing would start the odd-year short session facing high hurdles.

It was presented by supporters as a compromise, a marketing pitch adopted by the news coverage. The “compromise” was still opposed in public comments as overriding traditional local control over land use and imposing substantial new mandates for energy planning on localities and regional planning commissions.

The nine-member state oversight board it would create would be dominated by executive branch agencies (5 seats) and include a voting solar industry representative appointed by the House and another energy industry member appointed by the Senate. The Attorney General would have a seat, but the State Corporation Commission begged off and was dropped from the panel.

Under a Democratic governor and attorney general, the panel would likely lean heavily in favor of the solar and battery project approvals. But the way the bill is drafted, even under a Republican administration, denials would be difficult to sustain on appeal unless the project was clearly flawed. This panel would appear to be just as constrained in its autonomy by the law as the SCC often is.

The body is called a review board, but legally is more an authority, “a political subdivision of the Commonwealth,” created and empowered to conduct “critical interconnection reviews, conduct analysis and study policy options, review regional energy plans, local comprehensive plans, and local solar and storage ordinances and to facilitate the responsible siting of critical interconnection projects in the Commonwealth.”

“Critical interconnection project” includes a solar project of more than 20 megawatts faceplate production, or a smaller 2-megawatt project if located on a brownfield, landfill or parking facility. It also includes energy storage facilities.   A 20-megawatt solar field would likely cover from 120 to 200 acres. Many projects are far larger, of course.

The summary continues: “Under the bill, any developer planning to construct a critical interconnection project, defined in the bill, is required to submit an application to the Review Board. The Review Board is required to determine if the critical interconnection project (i) qualifies as a project of statewide significance, defined in the bill, and (ii) complies with the ordinance in each locality in which the proposed critical interconnection project would be located.”

The review board is to adopt a model statewide ordinance for the zoning and permitting of such facilities, and you can just drop the word “model” because it is really would be a statewide zoning law. Some of the limited reasons a permit can be denied are spelled out in the statute, and others will be adopted by the board. The overarching goal is strict compliance with the state’s statutory Clean Energy Policy (§45.2-1706.1) and the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

Localities and regional planning commissions would have to amend all their comprehensive plans to incorporate local or regional “forecasted energy demand growth” and to identify and report previously developed sites “that may be suitable for renewable energy development.” Each region would have its own version of the integrated resource planning approach now taken by the big utilities at the SCC.  But the SCC won’t be approving those plans – this new authority will.

In fairness, the advocates for this state absorption of previously local authority are probably correct. Absent this top-down approach, a high percentage of large solar proposals may continue to run afoul of local opposition. The goals set by the General Assembly in the Virginia Clean Economy Act could prove impossible to accomplish. Dominion Energy Virginia, for example, is required by law to increase its existing solar production almost four-fold. It needs the equivalent of more than 500 of those 20-megawatt facilities.

But recent polling indicated that those resistant to a state override authority include most registered voters, including substantial numbers of Democrats.  Advocates have not yet mounted a major public effort at persuasion, which could build support, but that is unlikely to make a difference in time for the 2025 session.