The Virginia Senate on Friday passed a bill that would prevent localities from banning new utility-scale solar power projects outright — a so-called “ban on bans” — while a House of Delegates committee advanced a similar bill to the full House for consideration.
Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico County, said Friday on the Senate floor that his SB 347 would not require localities to approve any solar projects but would require localities to consider them individually.
VanValkenburg said that by requiring localities to review proposals rather than enacting blanket bans, his hope is that “we make this conversation a little less ideological.”
“We make it a little bit more about the merits of individual projects. We look at what the property owner’s requesting, we look at the economics of a project, we see if it makes sense. At the end of the day, the locality still can say no,” he said.
The bill creates standardized guidelines regarding setbacks, stormwater runoff, land disturbance and other aspects of development that localities can use when evaluating solar proposals, which VanValkenburg said would help them ensure that projects are “on the up and up.”
Furthermore, localities that reject a solar project would have to report their reasons to the State Corporation Commission, which would then create a database tracking such occurrences.
There was no debate on the Senate floor Friday ahead of the vote on VanValkenburg’s bill.
A similar bill in the House, HB 711 from House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, advanced out of a House committee on Friday and, like VanValkenburg’s bill, now heads to the full House of Delegates for consideration.
Herring said her bill would encourage cooperation among local governments, solar developers and landowners as the state works toward adding more renewable energy and that the standards detailed in the bill will ensure that projects are “well designed and responsibly managed.”
“All of the project standards are backed by evidence and facts,” Herring said.
The 21-17 vote in the Senate on Friday fell mostly along party lines. Sen. Russet Perry, D-Loudoun County, was the lone Democrat to vote against it, while Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County, was the lone Republican who voted in favor.
The House committee vote on Friday was 15-5 along party lines, with Democrats favoring it.
The bills had been recommended by the state Commission on Electric Utility Regulation.
Opinions divided on bill’s merits
Supporters of the bills say that they will help Virginia achieve more solar power while creating clearer standards for project development.
“The bill doesn’t mean a community has to have solar,” Evan Vaughan, executive director of MAREC Action, a coalition of renewable energy developers and manufacturers, said during a Monday Senate committee meeting. “It means that private property rights are respected and that individual projects can make their case to the community rather than being dismissed out of hand.”
MAREC Action says on its website that 64% of Virginia’s counties “are either closed for business to large-scale solar or have very restrictive and costly ordinances.”
Opponents say the bill would restrict local governments’ ability to exercise their own judgment about utility-scale solar.
“Anything that’s going to tighten on our local zoning for our localities is a little bit of a concern,” said Rachel Henley of the Virginia Farm Bureau.
Joe Lerch, director of local government policy for the Virginia Association of Counties, said during a Thursday House subcommittee meeting that the proposed legislation takes a “one size fits all” approach to projects that can vary widely in terms of size and geography.
“Our members just want to retain that ability to craft those ordinances and craft those agreements at the local level,” Lerch said.
Lerch added that “our counties are working with developers to review these projects in a timely manner and they’re getting approved.”
Bills illustrate state-versus-local tug-of-war
The Senate and House bills are the latest moves in an ongoing debate over how much authority a local government and the state each can exercise when utility-scale solar projects come to the table.
The Virginia Clean Economy Act, passed in 2020, requires Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to achieve carbon-free electricity portfolios by 2045 and 2050, respectively. It includes benchmarks for new solar and wind generation.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
Proponents of solar power say it’s a cost-effective way to deliver zero-carbon renewable energy. Property owners who lease out their land for solar power generation can earn money, while local governments can earn tax revenue.
Nonetheless, some local governments oppose utility-scale solar, often citing reasons including the projects’ anticipated negative impacts on property values, rural aesthetics, health, the environment and poor experiences with solar developers.
Some localities have enacted regulations restricting large-scale solar to various degrees.
For example, last year, Mecklenburg County and Patrick County removed utility-scale solar as an allowed land use.
Bedford County’s local ordinance doesn’t allow utility-scale solar and officials there have indicated that won’t change.
Clarke County enacted rules in 2024 stating that new large solar projects must be within a mile of one of two existing electric substations, effectively ending future utility-scale solar development there.
These restrictions generally apply only to utility-scale solar, typically with a capacity of 1 megawatt or more, not to smaller rooftop or ground-mounted solar systems for residential or agricultural use.
According to the University of Virginia’s Solar Database, between 2019 and 2024 the percentage of utility-scale solar proposals approved by local governments in Virginia steadily decreased, while the percentage of projects denied by local governments increased. The trend reversed in 2025.
General Assembly has seen ‘ban on bans’ before
The “ban on bans” has been two years in the making.
In 2024, a similar bill from VanValkenburg passed the Senate but failed to advance out of a House committee and was carried over to the next year.
Last year, VanValkenburg’s bill was incorporated into another bill from Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville. Deeds’ bill sparked debate on the Senate floor but failed to pass.
The House version, carried by then-Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William County, passed the House but failed to advance out a Senate committee.