Dive Brief:
- A Virginia bill signed June 17 codified a state definition for agrivoltaics – defining it in part as the “intentional co-location of agricultural production and solar energy generation on the same land” – which agrivoltaic proponents say will expand distributed generation and potentially revitalize fallow farmland.
- The final version of the bill omitted language about creating a stakeholder group which would establish criteria for qualifying projects, figure out how to monitor them and consider “permitting or other incentives” to promote agrivoltaics. The administration of Gov. Abigail Spanberger, D, will create that group on an executive basis, the Virginia Mercury reported.
- Lauren Glickman, VP of policy and communications for Encore Renewable Energy, noted that the state is in the “early stages” with agrivoltaics — Spanberger held the bill’s signing ceremony at the state’s first crop-based agrivoltaics project, which launched in October. “That gives you a lot of opportunity to set a really strong foundation for how we can build this up across Virginia,” Glickman told Utility Dive.
Dive Insight:
That first crop-based project, The Piedmont Environmental Council’s Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows in Loudoun County, is relatively small — 17 kWdc, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – but was built to be able to generate about 130% of the farm’s energy needs.
NREL lists Virginia as having 13 agrivoltaic projects. Other than Roundabout Meadows, all are either grazing or habitat-based projects. The largest overall is Skipjack Solar Center, a 175-MWdc sheep-grazing project on 2,200 acres. The 108-MWdc Foxhound Solar is the largest habitat project, sited on 580 acres and designed to provide a habitat for pollinators.
The law states that agrivoltaic projects must be “designed to prioritize and sustain agricultural productivity while simultaneously integrating renewable energy generation,” allow agriculture to continue over the life of the solar project and be part of a commercial agricultural operation, and have “provisions for decommissioning to protect the land's agricultural resources and productivity.”
Agrivoltaic projects must also “ensure flexibility for farmers to adapt to market conditions and support operational needs,” according to the law.
Concerns about solar projects infringing on the state’s prime farmland led to the 2022 passage of HB206, which Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality’s website describes as “enacted to address adverse impacts of small renewable energy solar projects in Virginia on prime agricultural soils and forest lands.”
In 2024 comments about HB206’s implementation, the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts recommended the state “incentivize solar development on brownfields and existing structures rather than prime agricultural and forest lands.” A 2024 report published by Virginia Commonwealth University found that “41% (12,541 acres) of the solar-disturbed land in the analysis was designated as prime farmland,” accounting for 0.25% of prime farmland in Virginia.
Glickman said she is optimistic that the state could use agrivoltaic projects to revitalize brownfield sites and abandoned farmland throughout Virginia. Across the U.S., she said, farmers are “[abandoning] their farmlands. They either become fallow, they’re selling, or they're just unable to actively farm them.”
According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture from the USDA, Virginia lost 488,292 acres of farmland between 2017 and 2022.
Glickman said she hopes abandoned cropland could be revitalized by grazing projects, so the state is “not just preserving farmland, we're actually growing farmland,” she said. “The fourth pillar is to make it flexible to work for the farmer … that could also provide an opportunity to think about how you would define and categorize a rotational grazing operation … that’s driving parts of the economy, and it's creating a whole new market for solar-grazed land.”
The legislation’s original language proposed a stakeholder advisory panel with representatives from the Virginia Association of Counties, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, Virginia Agribusiness Council, Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Virginia Forestry Association, Piedmont Environmental Council, American Farmland Trust, Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives, and “representatives of the solar industry, electric utilities, and other relevant stakeholders deemed appropriate.”
Glickman said she hopes the panel, which she expects to convene this summer, will have representatives from conservation groups like the Piedmont Environmental Council, “solar developers, the people who are actually going to have to build these projects,” and “critically most important,” crop farmers and grazers.
“We need to have a joint agricultural voice that includes both crops and grazing to ensure that this definition works for all parties,” she said. “This partnership between the agricultural community and the solar community is a really powerful one, but it has to have meaning, it has to be real, and I think when there is standardization, it creates the bridge to make these local partnerships real.”
