See my previous column that looked at the baseline data in the governor’s energy plan. Today, I look at the options that are based on that data.
When Mecklenburg County supervisors felt they’d allowed as much solar energy as they wanted, they passed a ban on further solar development in the county. That ban has now been undone by a new state law, but it’s doubtful that Mecklenburg’s underlying views about solar have changed.
Henry County supervisors, taking note of the new law, this year passed a cap on solar acreage in the county — which exactly matched what they had already approved.
After two solar projects were proposed earlier this year in Botetourt County, signs proclaiming “Keep Botetourt Green — No Industrial Solar” bloomed across the county. One project was withdrawn, another was rejected, but the signs remain.
Last week, Gov. Abigail Spanberger spoke in Danville at an event co-sponsored by Cardinal News. One of the first questions she took from the audience came from Pittsylvania County’s director of economic development, who noted that some counties “have complete solar fatigue.”
This is part of the backdrop for the governor’s energy plan, which she released a few days after that Danville event. The plan laid out different scenarios for how much energy Virginia would need to produce, depending on which set of policies was adopted. The experts who compiled this plan asked lots of questions about load growth on the grid, and the trade-offs involved in different types of energy, but there’s one big question missing: How practical are any of these scenarios? They all involve producing more energy, yet what we’re seeing is that nobody wants energy sites — or energy transmission lines — near them. Virginia has already reached its pain point for solar power in many rural localities, which have borne the brunt of the solar build-out so far, but the opposition to solar is matched by opposition to other forms of energy, too. The Mountain Valley Pipeline, which now transports natural gas from West Virginia to Chatham, sparked a decade of protests and lawsuits. Proposed natural gas plants in Chesterfield County, Cumberland County and Fluvanna County have all generated their own controversies. Even the wind farm now under construction in a remote portion of Botetourt County where it can’t be seen by many people led to a legal action.
There are those who like to look at energy in philosophical terms, arguing either that renewables are best because they’re green and domestic or that natural gas is better because it’s more constant (and also domestic). We will not settle those arguments here. Instead, my goal today is to look at the practical consequences of the different scenarios the governor’s plan presents. Here’s the first thing thing to know:
Virginia needs to double or triple or even quadruple its energy production by 2050
The report says Virginia currently has about 30,000 megawatts of energy production capacity — the industry term is “installed nameplate capacity” — and buys another 10,000 megawatts. “Even under the Low Load Forecast, Virginia would need to add capacity approaching twice its current installed nameplate capacity by 2050,” the plan says, meaning we need to add 60,000 megawatts.
The moderate forecast would require about 90,000 new megawatts — or triple. The highest forecast, from the PJM grid operators, anticipates Virginia would need to add 120,000 megawatts by 2050 — that’s quadruple what we have now.
The key word here may be “capacity,” which is very different from actual production. A solar facility might have a “nameplate capacity” of, say, 1,000 megawatts — but it doesn’t produce 1,000 megawatts all day because the sun doesn’t always shine. By contrast, a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant is called “baseload” power because it’s always on; a natural gas plant is considered “dispatchable” because its output can be increased or decreased as demand requires. Those who argue that solar is only part-time power love to point this out, and they’re not wrong; solar advocates counter that solar can become dispatchable power if you store it in batteries and release it onto the grid after dark.
In any case, the point is that Virginia is going to need to build a lot of power, and nobody disputes that. The main question is usually “what kind?” but there’s also the unasked question of “where?” This plan generally focuses on the moderate forecast — something on the order of 90,000 new megawatts — so the question is: Where would those 90,000 new megawatts be located?
Current policies would require Virginia add twice as much solar as we have now
The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia maintains a nifty Solar Database. It says Virginia currently has 17,264 megawatts of solar power. The governor’s energy plan looks at five different scenarios. The “no policies” scenario looks at a Virginia without the Clean Economy Act or participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This is a useful set of statistics for those who don’t like either (such as, oh, Republicans), but the political reality is that neither of those is going away anytime soon. Support for both is an article of faith with Democrats. Republicans would need to win a majority in the state Senate next year, and then a majority in the House of Delegates and the governorship in 2029, before they’d be in a position in 2030 to repeal the law and exit RGGI again.
Those who don’t like solar might like this “no policies” scenario — or not: It foresees 4,800 new megawatts of solar. That’s almost 28% more than we have now.
The other four scenarios range from 26,400 megawatts of solar to 39,463 megawatts of solar. If we stick with current policies, the plan says we’ll need 33,300 more megawatts of solar — almost twice what we have now. That would take us from 17,264 megawatts of solar to 50,564 megawatts — an increase of 193%.
Most of us don’t speak in megawatts, though, so let’s translate all these numbers into something we can more readily understand.
The Solar Database says solar — and storage — currently takes up 155,080 acres in Virginia. That’s 8.98 acres per megawatt. If the new solar megawatts we’re adding takes up the same amount of space — maybe it will, maybe it won’t — then those new 33,300 megawatts would require 299,034 acres.
How big is 299,034 acres?
Wythe County is 297,600 acres so that would involve devoting almost all of Wythe to solar energy production. For our readers in other parts of Virginia who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Wythe, here are some comparisons closer to you: Suffolk covers 273,920 acres. Spotsylvania County covers 264,960 acres. Fairfax County covers 259,840 acres. Frederick County and Winchester combined cover 272,134 acres.
Where is that acreage coming from? We can already see the political opposition that the current amount of solar has engendered. Spanberger herself has acknowledged that there’s “solar fatigue” in rural Virginia. This plan points to other options than taking rural land — we can potentially build on brownfields (many of which are also in rural Virginia, especially Southwest Virginia) or over parking lots and other buildings (technically feasible but economically more expensive). There’s also the possibility that someday the General Assembly, where rural legislators are already in the minority, simply decides that rural localities reluctant to approve solar are an impediment to state policy and votes to make solar siting a state responsibility, not a local one.
Whatever route Virginia takes, this seems to be the size requirement for the amount of solar we’ll need going forward.
Current policies would require 16.5 times as much on-shore wind as we already have in development
Virginia is not a big state for wind energy, at least not yet. Dominion Energy is currently constructing a wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach and has talked of building other offshore wind projects in the future. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy. You can also become a donor, too, and test that proposition yourself.) The governor’s plan envisions some or all of that offshore wind coming to fruition. Since Dominion already has those leases, there doesn’t seem much to talk about there in practical terms; the relative costs of all these forms of energy is not our concern here today, just their origin.
Instead, let’s focus on what the plan says about on-shore wind. Right now, Virginia doesn’t have any on-shore commercial wind, although there is one project under construction: Apex Energy’s Rocky Forge site just up the road from me in Botetourt County near Eagle Rock. Its capacity is rated at 79.3 megawatts.
The four policy scenarios the governor foresees say we need to add 480 megawatts of onshore wind — so that’s the equivalent of adding 16.5 Rocky Forge projects. Rocky Forge may be on the small side compared to other wind farms. North Carolina has two utility-scale wind farms that total 397 megawatts, so average 198 apiece. By that measure, Virginia needs 2.4 North Carolina-sized wind projects.
Here’s the practical side: Rocky Forge was first introduced in 2015 with the idea it would be operational two years later in 2017. Instead, it’s taken 11 years to get where we are now. Rocky Forge was also a relatively uncontroversial site — it’s remote, barely visible — but still generated legal opposition. Before Rocky Forge, there were proposals by different developers for wind projects in Highland County and Tazewell County; outrage followed and neither happened.
If Virginia needs 480 megawatts of onshore wind, where is it going to find sites to produce that power? In technical terms, they are there; James Madison University’s Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Energy has mapped them. In political terms, well, that’s a different matter. Tazewell County shut down the proposed Dominion wind farm in 2010 by enacting a height requirement that effectively precluded wind development there. Is a push for more wind going to go the route that solar seems to be going, with localities resistant and the threat of the state stepping in to override siting decisions?
Current policies mean we may need 17 small nuclear reactors
Virginia currently has two nuclear power stations, both operated by Dominion Energy. The North Anna site in Louisa County has two reactors, each rated at 945 megawatts. The Surry plant in Surry County also has two reactors, each rated at 890 megawatts. That’s 3,670 megawatts in all.
The scenarios in the governor’s plan call for adding anywhere from 1,000 megawatts of nuclear to 5,200 megawatts. (The “current policies” scenario comes in the highest.)
That means we need to add either the equivalent of one North Anna-sized reactor or 141% more nuclear than we have now.
Nuclear power has a long development timeline. The most recent reactor in the U.S. to go online was the Vogtle 4 reactor operated by Georgia Power at its four-reactor site in Waynesboro, Georgia. Planning for the fourth reactor began in 2006; construction began in 2009 and it finally went online in 2024 — 18 years after the project commenced. There’s hope that the new generation of small modular reactors being planned can be produced more quickly, but we have no idea because none have been deployed anywhere in North America yet.
There are three SMRs currently proposed in Virginia. Dominion and Amazon are jointly exploring a small reactor of “at least 300 megawatts” at North Anna. That would sure seem to solve the siting problem by simply adding a new reactor to an existing nuclear station. Appalachian is exploring a small reactor at its Joshua Falls substation in Campbell County; that’s described as being between 300 and 500 megawatts, depending on the design. This week, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based energy developer proposed a facility in Amherst County that would use multiple small reactors to produce 650 megawatts of electricity.
If all three projects happen, that would add up to 1,250 to 1,450 megawatts. Under two of the governor’s scenarios, that would exceed the amount of nuclear power required. However, under the “current policies” model, we’d still need 3,750 to 3,950 megawatts from nuclear. If we assume a small reactor of 300 megawatts (considered typical by U.S. Department of Energy projections), then we need 12-13 small reactors beyond what the ones that have been proposed. That measuring stick would also put the number of reactors in Amherst at two. That means we’re maybe talking about anywhere from four small reactors (the ones proposed, if the Amherst estimate is right) to up to 17.
Nuclear has many advantages: Unlike solar, it doesn’t require much land. Unlike solar and wind, it can operate around the clock. It also has a big disadvantage: the cost and time to get operational. The technology behind small reactors is proven; they’ve been in submarines and aircraft carriers for decades. There are probably some floating right now in Hampton Roads. However, the economics of these small reactors remains unproven. A scenario that calls for that many megawatts from nuclear is leaning heavily on a technology we haven’t put into commercial operation yet.
Of note: The governor’s plan recommends that the state “identify optimal sites and technical potential for advanced nuclear [both small reactors and large ones] across Virginia, including opportunities on brownfields, at or near military bases as appropriate, existing industrial sites, and conversion of fossil-to-nuclear opportunities to inform state deployment strategies and long-term resource planning.”
The reference to brownfields will surely get attention in Southwest Virginia, a place where former Gov. Glenn Youngkin wanted a small reactor. The reference to military bases might get attention from Quantico to Hampton Roads to Fort Pickett in Southside. The reference to “conversion of fossil-to-nuclear opportunities” brings to mind a U.S. Department of Energy study in 2023 that flagged the Clover coal plant in Halifax County as a good candidate for a nuclear site.
Even current policies would see natural gas increase by 50.9%
The biggest variation between the different scenarios is how natural gas is treated — as a reliable, domestic, dispatchable form of energy to be prized or a carbon-producing evil to be eliminated
Virginia currently has “nameplate” capacity of 13,711 megawatts of natural gas.
Our current policies foresee the need for 6,723 more megawatts of natural gas — about half what we have now. If we had no policies, we’d add 27,618 megawatts of natural gas — twice as much as we have now. Or there’s a scenario where we add no natural gas at all, so the options range from adding no natural gas to a dramatic increase in natural gas use — take your pick.
Virginia’s use of natural gas has increased by 87% since 2010, “primarily driven by increasing demand from the electric power sector and natural gas replacing coal as a dominant fuel for electricity generation,” the plan says. Not surprisingly for a document produced by a Democratic administration, this plan takes a dim view of using more natural gas. The report already says that the state’s utilities aren’t on track to meet the carbon-free goals of the Clean Economy Act; adding more natural gas makes that even more difficult. (That’s the state law that mandates Virginia’s two largest utilities, Dominion and Appalachian Power, go carbon-free by 2045 and 2050, respectively.)
What isn’t addressed is what more use of natural gas — be it the lower number under current policies or the higher number under no policies — would mean for the number of natural gas pipelines required in Virginia. The closest we come is that using more natural gas “increases long-term dependence” and might lock in certain infrastructure or even require expansion. “Significant expansion of these assets during the 2020s and 2030s could result in continued fossil fuel dependence extending well beyond the VCEA’s targeted carbon-free electricity timelines,” the plan says.
Those who want to eliminate carbon won’t like that, but then the trade-off becomes where we put the additional solar, wind and nuclear facilities.
We’re going to need a lot more rooftop solar
Finally, we get into the really technical stuff. Virginia has about 900 megawatts of “distributed energy resources.” This category covers a lot of things but most of it is “customer-owned solar,” meaning rooftop or backyard or balcony solar. As you can see from the chart, this category has grown rapidly and now equals about the size of three of those small nuclear reactors we were talking about earlier — or about one large nuclear reactor.
Regardless of which scenario we go with, we’re going to need a lot more of this type of power. Curiously, both the “current policies” and “no policy” versions have the same figure — we’d need 7,616 new megawatts of distributed power. Other scenarios put that number as high as 11,848.
Even on the low end, that’s 8.5 times as much as we have now; on the upper end, it’s 13.2 times as much as we have now. At least here, we don’t have to ask where it will go. Well, that’s not true for the portion that is “shared solar” that supplies a group of people, such as in an apartment complex, but you get the idea.
The bottom line
Based on this plan, we can either maintain the current policies, have no policies, or have different policies.
Under the current policies, we need to devote roughly 299,034 acres to solar, build 16.5 more wind farms the size of the one currently under construction, add 17 small modular nuclear reactors and increase our use of natural gas by 50.9%.
With no Clean Economy Act, and no RGGI, we’d need to add 43,104 acres of solar — more than Roanoke, Salem and Vinton combined (they add up to 38,784 acres), one more wind farm the size of Rocky Forge, one more large nuclear reactor (or maybe three small ones) and twice as much natural gas as we have now — with however many pipelines and gas plants that would require.
With other policies, well, two of the other three scenarios call for more solar than current policies would produce, they all call for 16 more wind farms the size of Rocky Forge and varying amounts of nuclear, ranging from one large plant (or three small ones) to maybe 14 small ones, but much smaller amounts of natural gas.
Argue amongst yourselves as to which form of energy fits your ideology best, but whatever it is, it has to go somewhere — and, with the exception of rooftop and backyard solar, nobody wants it near them. So how do we deal with that?
Our weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, goes out every Friday afternoon. This week I’ll be looking at the early voting trends across Virginia, with special attention paid to the 5th and 6th districts. We’ll also have some energy-related politics there, too. Sign up below:
