Updated 2:20 p.m., April 15: This story has been updated to add further comments from GreeneHurlocker attorney Jared Burden.
The Mecklenburg County Board of Supervisors on Monday voted unanimously to remove utility-scale solar as a future allowed land use countywide, essentially closing the book on large solar project development there.
The decision comes as some Southside Virginia localities resist the region’s status as a hotspot for solar and as some state lawmakers have attempted to assert greater state-level influence over local solar siting.
Residents and local officials who oppose utility-scale solar in Mecklenburg County and elsewhere commonly cite concerns over rural aesthetics, the availability of agricultural land, property values and the environment. Supporters say solar provides renewable energy along with revenue to landowners and local governments.
Mecklenburg County Administrator Alex Gottschalk said in an email to Cardinal News last month that the county was an early adopter of utility-scale solar but that “the cons have, to date, far outweighed the pros in most people’s minds.”
Mecklenburg supervisors will allow three pending projects to continue their permitting process, although supervisors still can approve or deny them as they see fit. Those projects are the 80-megawatt Seven Bridges Solar, the 90-megawatt Antlers Road Solar and the 97-megawatt Finneywood Solar.
“If they are the ones that currently have applications in the queue, I think we at least owe it to them to complete the process,” supervisor Tom Tanner said at Monday’s board meeting.
Ordinance change follows 2023 land cap
In 2023, Mecklenburg supervisors limited the amount of land in the county that can be used for solar to 2,325 acres, which is less than 1% of the county’s total size.
With three existing projects — Bluestone Farm Solar, Grasshopper Solar and Otter Creek Solar — taking up more than half of that limit, and the three pending projects slated to require about 500 acres each, the countywide acreage cap precludes the three newer proposals from all being approved.
“If any two of them get approved, that’s the end of it,” county attorney Russell Slayton said Monday. “There’s not room for three.”
The ordinance change approved Monday applies only to large, utility-scale solar projects, not smaller projects such as installing solar panels at homes and businesses.
No members of the public commented on the matter before the supervisors voted or during a later open public comment period.
At a March 27 county planning commission meeting, three people spoke against removing utility-scale solar from the local ordinance, while none spoke in favor.
County resident Laurie Huber noted at that meeting that Virginia imports more electricity than any other state in the U.S.
“We need to expand and broaden our energy resources, our sources of electricity,” Huber said.
Other Southside localities block or restrict solar
Mecklenburg County, which has about 30,000 residents on the Virginia-North Carolina border, is among the Southside Virginia counties that have drawn the interest of solar developers seeking relatively flat, inexpensive land.
Data from the University of Virginia’s Solar Database shows that nearly half of the projects approved in the past decade in Virginia have been in Southside.
It also shows that between 2020 and 2024, the number of project applications denied by local officials across the commonwealth has increased, while project approvals have declined.
Data for the first three months of 2025 shows an uptick in the percentage of projects approved so far this year but also that fewer total projects are coming before localities for consideration than during the past few years.
Mecklenburg isn’t the first Virginia county to forbid or restrict utility-scale solar development.
In June 2024, Greensville County’s board of supervisors voted to remove utility-scale solar as an acceptable land use from the county’s zoning ordinance.
Bedford County has no utility-scale solar, and the county’s ordinance doesn’t allow it. Officials there have indicated that won’t change.
Henry and Pittsylvania counties adopted land caps similar to the one Mecklenburg enacted in 2023.
In January 2024, Clarke County enacted a rule stating that new large solar projects must be within a mile of one of two existing electric substations, effectively putting an end to future utility-scale solar development.
Late last year, Halifax County supervisors adopted more stringent requirements for new large solar projects after lifting a temporary moratorium on them.
Jared Burden, a Harrisonburg-based attorney with GreeneHurlocker whose specialties include solar energy development, said in an interview Monday that other methods used to limit solar projects include project acreage caps, density restrictions and setback requirements.
Mecklenburg’s decision to remove utility-scale solar as an allowed land use is one way to prevent new projects, Burden said.
“It’s a very technical and clean way to do it that looks like it’s within the appropriate land use discretion of a county,” he said. “But I don’t believe it is. Dropping out solar from a list of special uses would effect a moratorium, which is illegal in Virginia.
“Per se prohibitions are also likely outside a locality’s zoning authority and are ultra vires,” Burden added. “Ultra vires” means outside legal authority when referring to an act that requires legal authority.
Some state legislators attempt to overcome local resistance
Local resistance to utility-scale solar has prompted some Democratic state lawmakers to propose various measures to give the state more say in the approval and siting of solar projects.
Virginia’s two largest power companies, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, have legislatively mandated goals to achieve carbon-free electricity portfolios by 2045 and 2050, respectively.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
Meanwhile, the commonwealth is seeing a rapidly rising demand for electricity, largely driven by the growth of data centers.
These lawmakers say the commonwealth can’t meet that demand and achieve its clean-energy goals if local governments continue to reject utility-scale solar proposals.
One example of a bill designed to increase the state’s sway over solar during this past General Assembly session was carried by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, in the Senate and Del. Rip Sullivan Jr., D-Fairfax County, in the House.
Supporters said the legislation would provide guidance to local governments as they evaluate solar proposals, but opponents argued that it would impose new requirements on local government and usurp local authority over land-use decisions. It failed to pass.
Another bill was sponsored in the House by Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William County, and in the Senate by Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico County.
It would have required localities to have a permitting process allowing developers to submit applications for utility-scale solar projects, although it would not have required localities to approve such projects. It also failed to pass.