An update on utility scale solar in Louisa County

The following is from Engage Louisa (2/24/25), which is described as "a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government".

Board adopts stringent new rules aimed at shutting down utility-scale solar development

The board of supervisors voted unanimously to adopt stringent new rules for utility-scale solar project siting agreements, aimed at shutting down large-scale solar development in Louisa County.

The new rules, now formally part of the county’s solar ordinance, apply to any utility-scale solar facility not yet permitted by the board. The rules require solar developers to make annual payments to Louisa County equal to between .075 percent and .125 percent of the county’s operating budget, which currently sits at about $156 million, for every megawatt of power produced by their projects. They also mandate that solar facilities begin generating electricity within five years of approval and recommend that project owners provide adjoining landowners with $500 in annual compensation for electric bill or property tax abatement.

The amendments, which were twice tweaked during the public approval process and initially directed 25 percent of siting agreement revenue to affordable housing initiatives, drew pushback from representatives of the solar industry. Developers said the sizable per-megawatt payments would effectively wipe out profits for project owners and suggested the provision could shut the door on solar development in Louisa.

Still, Deputy County Administrator Chris Coon repeatedly insisted that the provisions were designed to benefit the community and solar developers by providing a consistent framework to help mitigate the impacts of solar projects and meet community needs.

And when the board adopted an initial version of the proposal as a policy at its November 18 meeting—essentially allowing it to take effect immediately so it would apply to solar projects working their way through the public approval process—Patrick Henry District Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes and Green Springs District Supervisor Rachel Jones claimed the board was, as Jones put it, “showing a commitment” to addressing the community’s affordable housing needs.

But supervisors pushed aside those pretenses at Tuesday’s meeting and made clear that their intentions weren’t to generate money for any of the county’s capital needs or mitigate the impact of solar development, as solar siting agreements are designed to do under state code. Instead, they aimed to close the door on large-scale solar amid fears that lawmakers in Richmond would usurp local control over the siting of solar generation facilities as the state faces a burgeoning demand for power and strives to meet its clean energy goals.

“We’ve had enough. We’re done. If this kills it, if this does it, I’m all in. It may not hold up in court. We may get sued. But, you know what? We won’t know until we go to court,” Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams said.

In approving the amendments, the board axed the provision that would’ve set aside 25 percent of the revenue the county would theoretically receive from siting agreements. They also set aside a draft memo from Coon suggesting the county could use siting agreement revenue to fund several other initiatives including Harmful Algal Bloom mitigation at Lake Anna, a Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program aimed at preserving farmland and stream restoration efforts.

“It seems like [this] could grow government rather than lessen it. I think a lot of us want to lessen government influence,” Cuckoo District Supervisor Chris McCotter said of Coon’s draft revenue framework.

The adopted amendments state that revenue would be allocated to a “fund balance.”

The board’s solar committee initially recommended implementing siting agreement standards. The committee, which includes Barnes and Mineral District Supervisor Duane Adams, previously led successful efforts to toughen the county’s solar ordinance and cap at two percent, or 6,343 acres, the amount of land that can be used for large-scale solar generation.

Once generally supportive of utility-scale solar, Barnes and Adams have since soured on the use as the political winds in rural Virginia have shifted—especially among Adams’ Republican base—and in the wake of problems at Dominion Energy’s Belcher Solar Facility off Waldrop Church Road in Barnes’ district. At Belcher, neighboring farmers say that runoff from the sprawling 1,300-acre facility has caused severe flooding and erosion on their property.

Since 2015, the board has approved seven utility-scale solar projects, covering almost 5,200 acres, but only four have been constructed. Supervisors haven’t approved a large-scale solar facility since early 2022.

A couple supervisors suggested that the problems at Belcher were, at least in part, the impetus for their action. Williams expressed disgust with how the project has been handled.

“If I was the developer of…the Belcher Solar Facility, the [Department of Environmental Quality] would’ve had me in prison, sir. I would’ve been in prison, and I would be broke and bankrupt, and they would have everything I own. But it wasn’t me. It was Dominion Energy,” Williams said, noting that Dominion only received a $50,000 fine for damage it caused to a creek running through the property.

Others insisted that the county does plenty to produce energy for the state and would continue to do its part with the potential development of small modular reactors (SMR) at Dominion’s North Anna Nuclear Power Station. Dominion has said it hopes to bring a commercial SMR online by the early 2030s. To date, the technology hasn’t been deployed for commercial power generation in the western hemisphere.

“Louisa County is one of the top producing energy counties of the state. When is another county going to step up? How much more do you want to take off of our backs and take off of our homeowners and landowners here in our community? How much more do you want to take away? And we are still moving forward with power. We still have small modular reactors coming. We still have solar that’s already in the works,” Jones said.

Though community members have taken to social media to decry large-scale solar development and occasionally expressed opposition at public meetings when a project was proposed near their home, no one from Louisa County weighed in during the public hearing for or against the amendments. One community member suggested that the board use money from siting agreements to hire a county engineer.

Two people with ties to the solar industry spoke in opposition.

Telly Manos, a senior development manager with the solar developer, Urban Grid, said the per-megawatt payment requirement would ensure that solar project owners wouldn’t get any return on their investment. Under the amendments, project owners would be required to pay the county as much as $195,000 per megawatt per year.

“A solar facility makes about $120,000 to $140,000 per megawatt per year in Virginia. So, the proposed dollar value is more than the facility even makes in revenue, and that’s before taxes and operational expenses are taken out,” Manos said.

Skyer Zunk, representing Energy Right, a conservative group that supports large-scale solar, said that he feared Louisa’s decision to impose exorbitantly high taxes on solar facilities could set a bad precedent and compel the General Assembly to wrest control over the siting of clean energy generation facilities from localities.

“As a small-government, conservative organization, we absolutely respect local control. But that arrangement absolutely requires that localities work in good faith with folks trying to bring new energy to the grid,” Zunk said.

But board members brushed off that concern.

“The reason I am going to support these changes [is because] it sends exactly the message I want to send about solar in Louisa County,” Adams said, adding “I think we are going to see the heavy hand of the state government trying to come into play and override local zoning ordinances, anyway. At least, we have something in place that, when that happens, we can point to the ordinance that we have in place.”

Zunk countered that, if the state usurps local control, it could cap how much localities can tax solar projects.