Cardinal News offers 12 takeaways from the recent Virginia Solar Survey, including the following key points:

  • Solar output has surged, nearly all in the form of large, industrial-scale solar installations in rural Virginia.
Active utility-scale solar facilities of 5MG or more (Virginia Solar Survey)
  • Nearly all the big solar installations are in Republican counties in central and southern Virginia.
  • Some counties in southside Virginia have so much solar that they’re feeling “overwhelmed.”
  • Nottoway, Page, and Shenandoah Counties have enacted moratoriums on utility-scale solar. Augusta and Mecklenburg have restricted the size of solar projects.
  • To meet the demands of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), Virginia will have to install over 5 times as much solar as it already has.
  • The General Assembly passed a vote requiring mitigation plans for any solar project on 10 acres of prime agricultural soils or 50 acres of forested land.
  • Solar installations have a permanent and negative impact on land. Analysis by a Virginia Tech professor shows that returning that land to farmland will be “very difficult” because almost no topsoil remains.

Read the full article here.