A state commission on Monday recommended that the General Assembly consider creating a new board to give the state more control over approval of large solar projects.
The Commission on Electric Utility Regulation voted 7-5 in support of draft legislation to create the Virginia Energy Facility Review Board, which would evaluate certain large solar and energy storage project proposals and provide its input to local governments considering those proposals.
Under the proposed legislation, a local government that rejects a solar proposal that the new board recommends would have to explain why, and a rebuffed developer or property owner could appeal the locality’s decision to a circuit court.
The bill would also require localities to adopt solar ordinances consistent with a statewide model that the board would devise, and it would require regional planning district commissions to adopt plans that demonstrate their “meaningful annual contribution” toward Virginia’s clean energy goals.
Furthermore, the legislation would create a collaboration among Virginia’s public universities to provide technical assistance to localities evaluating solar proposals and input on regional energy plans.
“This bill lives at the intersection of statewide priorities and goals and local land-use decisions,” said Del. Rip Sullivan Jr., D-Fairfax County.
The proposal comes as Virginia faces rapidly rising electricity demand, legislatively mandated clean energy goals that include deadlines for adding more solar power, and a state-versus-local tension as local governments increasingly resist new solar, whether by denying individual proposals or by enacting restrictive regulations.
The legislation that the commission recommended on Monday would deal with new solar projects that meet certain criteria, including having generation capacity of at least 20 megawatts — or 2 megawatts if located on previously disturbed land such as brownfields, abandoned mines or parking lots — and requiring local government approval such as a zoning change or permit.
“We’re not talking about every solar project out there,” said state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville.
A developer proposing such a project would submit it to the Virginia Energy Facility Review Board before it appeared before the relevant local government body.
The review board would consist of 11 members: Nine standing members would be directors or other employees of state agencies such as the Virginia Department of Energy and the Department of Environmental Quality plus a member of a solar-industry trade association and a subject-matter expert, while two slots would be for representatives of the locality where the solar project would be located.
After receiving a developer’s application, the board would determine within 90 days whether the project complies with local ordinances. It would be allowed to ignore any “unreasonable restriction” such as an outright local ban on solar facilities.
The locality would then have 180 days to make a decision on the relevant zoning or permitting request. If it failed to decide within that time, the local government action that the developer had requested would be considered granted.
If the review board recommended that the local government approve a project but the locality ultimately denied it, the locality would have to explain its reasoning in writing.
A developer or property owner could appeal the rejection to the circuit court, where the burden would be on the locality to prove that the denial was merited.
Furthermore, the board would develop a model solar ordinance and each Virginia locality would be required to adopt a local ordinance consistent with the board’s model by July 1, 2026.
The 14-member Commission on Electric Utility Regulation is made up of six state delegates, four state senators, three citizen members and an attorney with the state attorney general’s office. The draft legislation under consideration Monday was developed by commission staff with input from the solar industry, environmental advocates, local governments and other stakeholders.
Much of Monday’s discussion among commissioners revolved around whether the proposed legislation amounted to the state setting reasonable guardrails to guide localities as they consider solar proposals or whether it represented a usurpation of local government authority.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, said the draft represented a compromise between two extremes: on one end, letting the status quo continue where solar projects are increasingly rejected, and on the other end, granting a state regulatory agency complete power to override a local government.
“This is a far cry from just telling the [State Corporation Commission] to shove this down localities’ throats,” said Surovell, who serves as chair of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation.
Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, opposed the draft legislation and said it would represent an “enormous shift of decision-making authority” from local governments to an unelected volunteer board.
“We are creating a review board with truly extraordinary powers,” Obenshain said.
He characterized the legislation as “window dressing” designed to make it appear as though the state didn’t ultimately intend to force localities to approve solar projects.
“If you want to do something, I say just do it,” Obenshain said.
Sullivan said that although local ordinances would have to comply with a statewide model ordinance, that wouldn’t require localities to approve projects.
“They’ll still have the discretion not to if it’s a bad application that doesn’t meet the criteria in the ordinance that they adopt,” he said.
Deeds emphasized that the bill doesn’t require any landowner to develop solar energy on their property. Rather, he said the goal is to help localities address the solar proposals that they receive because the issue is “not going away.”
“This is driven essentially by the fact that some localities in Virginia have chosen to create a thoughtful process for the review of alternative energy projects and some haven’t,” Deeds said.
Obenshain said the bill’s requirement that a circuit court take up a developer or landowner’s appeal and resolve the case within 90 days would increase the workload for courts across Virginia and would “further back up the civil justice process for everybody except solar developers.”
“For goodness’ sakes, what else are we going to do for one industry?” he asked.
Sullivan countered that the bill would be for all of Virginia.
“What we’re looking for is a way to facilitate the implementation of a state goal, and we’re trying to solve a problem for the entire state, not just an industry,” Sullivan said.
Josephus Allmond, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center and one of the commission’s citizen members, called the solar-siting issue “a serious problem that needs to be resolved.”
“We think what’s before us today is a thoughtful proposal that tries to balance locality interests in making decisions on a project but also providing a state expert decision-making advisory opinion to help them do that, to make sure they’re doing it with the correct information,” Allmond said.
Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William County, said she supported the ideas of the state review board and the consortium of universities to help localities but was “really struggling to understand” how the local and regional requirements would make the process easier.
“Just on its face value, it looks very complicated,” said Mundon King, who voted in favor of recommending the legislation to the General Assembly.
Virginia Speaker of the House Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, questioned why it was necessary to create a new state board and require localities to adopt ordinances that match a state model.
Although he voted to recommend the bill to the General Assembly for consideration, he said he “would do everything in my power to kill this bill if it comes before the body like this.”
Public comments during a committee meeting and then a subsequent full commission meeting were divided. For example, Walton Shepherd of the Natural Resources Defense Council called the legislation “light years ahead of what any other state has,” while Chris Thompson, a Greensville County planning commissioner, said the review board would be “stacked against localities.”
Just before calling for a vote on Deeds’ motion to recommend the bill to the General Assembly, which convenes on Wednesday for a 45-day session, Surovell reiterated his view that the draft represents a “reasonable compromise.”
“I understand it needs more work,” he said. “It’s going to continue to have more work through the legislature. But it’s pretty clear after probably hundreds of people have spent thousands of hours working on this, it’s going to continue to be a source of conflict and sooner or later somebody’s going to have to call the ball on this and make a decision, and that’s what the General Assembly’s here to do.”