Proposed changes to Washington County’s solar ordinance will be considered Tuesday night by the county’s board of supervisors.
The changes include increasing the size of what is considered a small solar project from 1 to 5 acres, according to the agenda.
Calls to County Administrator Jason Berry and County Attorney Brandon Snodgrass for more information about the changes were not returned on Monday.
The board will consider the solar ordinance on first reading. If it moves forward, the next step will be a public hearing by the board of supervisors and the planning commission.
Earlier proposed solar farm was hundreds of times bigger
The proposed changes come about six months after the county turned down a solar farm project that would have put about 500,000 solar panels over nearly 2,000 acres. Catalyst Energy Partners of Dallas, Texas, needed a special exception permit to move forward with the project because some of the land was in an agriculture zone, which doesn’t allow that use.
The Wolf Hills Solar project was a $400 million, 262-megawatt solar project that would have been built in the Wyndale community next to Wolf Hills Energy’s natural gas-generating facility.
The permit was turned down in a unanimous vote by the county’s planning commission. During the five-hour public hearing on June 24, most of those who spoke were opposed to the project because they said it would result in the loss of farmland and diminish the area’s natural beauty.
The board of supervisors would have then considered the project, but it was withdrawn by Catalyst.
The Wolf Hills proposal dwarfs the size of the largest potential ‘small solar’ project, even under the proposed changes.
Other Virginia counties have larger ‘small’ solar limits
Augusta County, one of the commonwealth’s largest counties by square miles, defines “small solar” as having a “fenced in area” of 25 acres or less, allowing additional acreage for other related parts of the business.
On the industry side of the topic, solar farms are often characterized by increments of 1 megawatt of power, which takes about 5 acres of solar panels to generate.
The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. at the county government building, at 1 Government Center Place in Abingdon.