Category Archives: energy efficiency

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Spanberger’s energy plan dazzles – and disappoints

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solar panels on a school roof
Rooftop solar gets a boost in the 2026 Energy Plan, potentially leading to more installs like that on Wilson Middle School in Augusta County. Photo courtesy of Secure Futures.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s energy plan, released October 1, is a marvel of earnestness and hard work. Anyone plowing through its 180 pages of text and appendices can’t help but be impressed with the level of detail and the thoroughness of its coverage.

The Department of Energy even acquired the same modeling software used by Dominion Energy and ran its own scenarios. And unlike Dominion, the administration took the goals of the Virginia Clean Economy Act seriously.

It’s an impressive effort, and the result surely has to be considered the new gold standard for Virginia energy plans, which have seldom even met statutory requirements. Take a bow, Virginia Energy staff and chief Energy Officer Josephus Allmond; you deserve it.

And yet.

If the plan’s central purpose is to demonstrate that Virginia doesn’t need to tamp down the growth of data centers to preserve energy affordability for residents and achieve the decarbonization goals of the VCEA, it fails.

The plan acknowledges that “rapid data center load growth is driving grid infrastructure constraints and higher costs.” Yet that unconstrained load growth is subjected to scrutiny only as to the accuracy of the forecasts, not to consider throttling back the growth.

Indeed, the plan hypothesizes that data centers will spend more on power than utilities will spend on infrastructure, an assertion the governor repeated last week at the Virginia Clean Energy Summit in Richmond.

From this calculation flowed her equally questionable argument that a future with more data centers will mean lower costs – the reverse of what the plan admits is happening now.

Providing enough clean energy cheaply to meet this load is a really hard circle to square, though the plan describes a few pathways heading in the right direction.

It identifies a lengthy list of ways to eliminate energy waste and smooth demand spikes, many of which have already been set in motion with 2026 legislation. (There is certainly room for improvement; the web site WalletHub just ranked Virginia 35th out of 48 states on energy efficiency.)

The plan also makes a strong case for energy storage and distributed generation as a way to harness private investment and make the grid more efficient, secure and resilient.

It recognizes the huge potential for solar on public buildings, currently held hostage to the interconnection barriers Dominion Energy erected. It also calls out Dominion for the high price tag on its clean energy projects and proposes a state-led renewables marketplace to bring the power of competition to bear on purchasing. And it suggests interesting interim solutions like fuel cells that could replace dirty diesel generators at data centers.

Certainly, it could go further. The governor could, for example, throw her weight behind a stronger residential building code and creation of an independent energy utility like Vermont’s to consolidate programs and maximize energy savings for residents.

The problem remains that all the efficiency, distributed generation and grid management in the world can’t get us out of the hole that data center demand is digging for us. We’re going to need a lot more generation, and if we also need it to be cheap and clean, we need a lot more utility-scale solar.

That brings me to my criticism of the energy modeling done by Virginia Energy’s staff, apart from its failure to include a scenario that limits data center growth. It imposes a cap on the amount of solar energy that the model was allowed to choose to achieve least-cost pathways for meeting demand. Without this artificial cap, it’s safe to say, the model would have selected a lot more cheap-and-easy solar paired with storage.

Doing so would have undercut a claim we are already hearing from Republicans, that if we would just leave climate and health costs out of the equation — and ignore turbine shortages, pipeline constraints, and fuel price volatility — building more fossil gas plants would come out as the cheapest option. A picture of what solar could do if we let it would rebut that argument.

That the model instead imposed a cap reveals Spanberger’s own ambivalence about utility solar. The administration takes it as a given that the current resistance to utility solar in many rural counties will persist even in the face of the declining farm income that makes solar one of the few lifelines available to struggling landowners. The plan mentions agrivoltaics approvingly but misses its transformational potential.

The plan could have proposed education and incentives to bring solar and agriculture together for the mutual benefit of both. Instead, it treats utility-scale solar as a regrettable necessity we should minimize. It’s an odd capitulation to solar NIMBYs from a governor who barely acknowledges the far greater public hostility to data centers.

Limiting utility-scale solar hamstrings the modeling effort. Even the addition of a lot more offshore wind, which is assumed to happen once President Donald Trump exits the stage, leaves us short of what’s needed to meet a massive increase in data center load.

Unwilling to check the growth of data centers, committed to defending the VCEA and wary of expanding energy imports, Spanberger isn’t left with a lot of great options. So, like so many governors before her, she puts her faith in nuclear.

Apparently, the best thing about the new small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) under development today is that they are still a long way from commercial viability. That excuses leaders from having to immediately grapple with the realities of cost, siting, safety, security and waste. People can just imagine SMRs will be the perfect power source.

I am reminded of friends who joke that their retirement plan is winning the lottery. Fortunately, my friends know not to bank on it.

Spanberger proposes to bank on it, and to pass the cost of the lottery tickets on to the public. The energy plan has numerous suggestions for ways Virginia can help develop nuclear energy, all to be paid for by Virginia residents.

The worst proposal involves revising our renewable portfolio standard to make new nuclear an eligible technology. It’s yet another blow to solar, which Virginia has already made more expensive to develop in a way no other state has done (looking at you, House Bill 206).

The plan’s enthusiasm for nuclear even extends to conventional large light-water reactors. Recall that Dominion pulled the plug on its proposal for a third, 1500-MW light-water reactor at North Anna in 2017, when the total cost to ratepayers had hit $19 billion (about $26 billion in today’s dollars). There is a reason nuclear companies want their projects subsidized, and a reason the rest of us should be wary of being the ones doing it.

Really, when you consider it, wouldn’t it be better just to slow the growth of data centers?

Originally published in the Virginia Mercury on October 16, 2026.

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The simple affordability fix Virginia just can’t seem to make

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A house under construction in McLean, VA
Photo by Ivy Main

Across the political spectrum, people who do the math come up with the same answer: the cheapest kilowatt-hour is the one you don’t need to use. A well-insulated building outfitted with LED lighting and energy-efficient appliances saves money for occupants over time even when upfront costs are higher.

It’s astounding, then, that Virginia’s residential building code treats these elements as optional luxuries rather than as basic standards that all home buyers and renters should expect, even – or perhaps especially – in an entry-level home. 

Key efficiency provisions of Virginia’s housing code have not been strengthened in a decade and a half, lagging far behind national model standards that many states regularly adopt each time the model standards are improved.  

Even more astounding, Virginia’s Board of Housing and Community Development (BHCD), which updates Virginia’s code every three years, is set to propose an “updated” building code with efficiency standards that lag even the 2012 edition of the national standards. 

The national model code is called the International Energy Conservation Code, or IECC. Its globalist name notwithstanding, it is overwhelmingly a U.S. standard and serves as the basis for the efficiency provisions of most state and local building codes. 

Every three years the International Code Council updates the IECC, almost always ratcheting up standards in line with improved technologies and capabilities.  

If you buy a new house in Maryland, which regularly adopts the latest IECC, you can be assured of a weather-tight home built to a solid efficiency baseline. Across the Potomac in Virginia, your new house is likely to be built to lower standards, even by the same builder. 

The builder may have saved a little money building the Virginia house, but whether you will save anything on the purchase price is questionable. As every buyer knows, supply and demand matter much more than a builder’s cost in determining how much you pay for your home.  

What is absolutely clear (and demonstrated by research in case the point isn’t sufficiently intuitive) is that you will spend more money over time to heat and cool and power a less efficient home. By the time you’ve paid off your mortgage, Virginia’s lax standards are likely to have cost you tens of thousands of dollars. 

Sure, once you’ve bought that Virginia home you can then spend more money to upgrade lighting and appliances and possibly do some extra weatherizing, assuming you are even aware that better performance is possible. But you’re pretty much stuck with whatever insulation the builder put into the walls. That’s why the time to maximize energy efficiency is when the home is being built, not later.  

What’s especially irritating is that Virginia’s failure to adopt higher standards comes in spite of the General Assembly’s efforts to raise the bar. Legislators are hesitant to wade into the minutia of building codes, but twice in the last ten years they have passed laws nudging the Board towards stronger energy conservation standards.  

Virginia law now calls for the Board to adopt a code that permits buildings to be “constructed, rehabilitated and maintained at the least possible cost consistent with recognized standards of health, safety, energy conservation and water conservation.” 

It instructs the Board to have “due regard” for the “generally accepted standards” recommended by the International Code Council and the National Fire Protection Association. (The fire standards have done very well as a result; the efficiency standards, not so much.) 

More pointedly, a 2021 act added a requirement that when the International Code Council issues an updated version of the IECC, the Board must consider adopting amendments to the Virginia building code that are “at least as stringent as” the provisions of the latest IECC. 

In doing so, the Board must assess “the public health, safety, and welfare benefits of adopting standards that are at least as stringent as those contained in the IECC, including potential energy savings and air quality benefits over time compared to the cost of initial construction.”

I’m sure the Board would say that it does consider these things, right before dismissing them. We should take that with a grain of salt; the BHCD has long been dominated by builder interests. 

And according to Bill Penniman, an activist and attorney who participates in the BHCD process, the board operates according to a rule it made up that says there must be “consensus” among the members of the various working groups that review the code before a more stringent provision makes the final cut. 

But, according to Penniman, the board defines “consensus,” to mean unanimity, and thus consensus is never reached in favor of strengthening energy conservation provisions because, again, builders and their allies dominate the process. (Interestingly, he notes, non-unanimous proposals to weaken the code don’t suffer a similar fate.)

And so, in spite of the law, Virginia’s wall insulation and air-leakage standards remain weaker than IECC standards from 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2024. 

Now, according to Penniman, the BHCD plans to submit to the governor proposed code amendments that once again fall short of even the 2012 IECC. At a July 13 meeting, the board rejected even an amendment offered by Penniman and other efficiency advocates that would have brought wall insulation requirements up to the IECC standard in effect from 2012 to 2018. 

Penniman says there will be a final vote in December before BHCD publishes the proposed rule for “updates” that will take effect in 2028. 

Having written on this topic before, I’ve heard from home builders who say that increasing the efficiency of new homes makes them too expensive for entry-level buyers. The choice, they say, is not between building homes to lower standards or higher standards, but between building them to lower standards or not at all.

If you really want to add to the housing stock, they urge, you need to make homes as cheap to build as possible, including skimping on energy-saving measures. And since it wouldn’t be fair to have higher standards for well-off buyers than for poorer folks, everyone alike must suffer from below-standard housing.  

Well, okay, they don’t put it in quite the same words I use, but so far they have won the argument at the Board. 

What is interesting here, however, is that while most homebuilders focus on maximizing profit by building as cheaply as possible, companies like Habitat for Humanity and Viridiant, which regularly serve low-income communities, consistently choose EarthCraft or Energy Star standards –  which both exceed code. They know a home isn’t affordable if the occupants can’t afford to pay for heat and electricity.

Clearly it is time for the governor to weigh in. Her just-released Energy Plan has a lot of welcome language on energy efficiency as well as other technologies that save money while lowering carbon emissions. (I’ll unpack it in more detail in a future column.) 

The plan leans in on the importance of home efficiency and touts state programs that provide support for retrofits of existing homes. But while it also notes that adopting the latest model building codes could yield billions of dollars in energy cost savings over the life of new homes, it does not actually call for Virginia to take that path. 

Residential heating and cooling is a significant expense for most households. An energy affordability agenda that leaves out home efficiency is one with a gaping hole in it.

First published in the Virginia Mercury on October 2, 2026.

Psst! Want to offset your carbon footprint but can’t put solar on your home? Help us put solar on a Virginia non-profit! Norfolk Solar Solutions uses your tax-deductible donations to provide resiliency and energy savings to community-serving nonprofits across the commonwealth. Check us out!

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The bills are back in town

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Legislators cue up last year’s vetoed legislation for a new session, but leave us wanting more

Last spring Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed more energy bills than he signed, killing legislation designed to increase rooftop solar and energy storage, strengthen utility planning requirements, and make efficiency improvements more available to low-income residents. 

Now, with Abigail Spanberger set to replace Youngkin in the Governor’s Mansion and Democrats in a position of legislative strength, those bills are back.

Members of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR) met several times this fall to examine last year’s failed energy bills to determine which should get the commission’s endorsement this year. CEUR is comprised primarily of legislative leaders from the Senate and House committees that hear energy bills, so endorsements signal a strong likelihood of passage. 

But while the bills CEUR endorsed show promise, I can’t help thinking they had better be just a starting point.  

Energy affordability and making data centers pay their fair share are supposed to be the top objectives for legislators this year. That makes it interesting, and concerning, that even as CEUR went beyond the vetoed bills to endorse some small new initiatives, it didn’t propose any legislation that would either supercharge generation in Virginia or put the onus on the tech companies to solve their supply problem themselves.  

We know bills like that are coming. Ann Bennett, the lead author of the Sierra Club’s comprehensive report on the state of the industry in Virginia, was, I hope, being hyperbolic when she told me she expects “a hundred” data center bills this session. Regardless, there will be a lot of them. 

Many will be land use bills that don’t go to the energy committees, but others will tackle the central contradiction at the heart of Virginia’s data center buildout: our leaders want the industry to grow, but haven’t faced squarely the problem of where the energy will come from. 

Getting more power on the grid (or freeing up capacity)

Some of the vetoed bills returning this year will put more energy on the grid. They won’t be enough to power the data center industry, but every bit helps. This includes one of the environmental communities’ top priorities, a bill that expands the role of rooftop solar in Virginia’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). 

A new bill permitting balcony solar also got CEUR’s endorsement. Balcony solar – two or three panels that plug into a wall outlet, reducing a resident’s need to buy power – is the buzziest new idea of the year. The systems are too small to make much of a difference in megawatt terms, but by democratizing access to solar they counter the reputation of solar as a technology for rich people and will make it possible for solar skeptics to see for themselves that solar does actually work and save money.

Another CEUR initiative is a bill similar to one Youngkin vetoed that creates a carveout in the state’s renewable portfolio standard specifically for geothermal heat pumps. Like balcony solar, geothermal heat pumps don’t put electricity onto the grid, but by freeing up power for other customers it has the same effect.

 CEUR also endorsed a bill to simplify billing in the shared solar program in Appalachian Power Company’s territory, but a far more significant proposal to greatly expand shared solar in Dominion territory was deemed not ready for consideration after one of its patrons, Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, said it was still in negotiation.  

The SCC recently directed a change in the calculation of Dominion Energy’s minimum bill that industry advocates say should make the program workable for customers beyond the low-income residents who were the only ones formerly able to access it. As currently drafted, the bill would allow shared solar to increase up to a maximum of 6% of Dominion’s peak load. That gives this bill the potential to make a meaningful dent in Virginia’s energy shortfall – if Dominion doesn’t block it. 

That assumes developers can get the community solar projects permitted at the local level. 

Virginia localities are notorious for denying permits to solar projects of all sizes, a recalcitrance that has contributed to Virginia having to import fully half of the electricity consumed in the state. CEUR has now scrapped last year’s big idea of allowing solar developers to appeal local government permit denials to the SCC, after failing to persuade enough legislators to vote for it last year. All that is left of that bill is a piece that establishes a university consortium to provide research and technical assistance. 

Luckily, last year’s other major solar siting bill lives on; it codifies best practices for solar projects without removing localities’ ability to deny permits even for projects that meet the high standards. New this year, however, is a requirement that localities provide a record of their decisions to the SCC, including the reason for any adverse decision. 

It’s not the solution the industry and landowners need to bring predictability to the local permitting process, but it does ratchet up pressure on county boards that have a habit of denying projects without articulating a legitimate reason. And sure enough, imposing that modest amount of accountability was enough to get Joe Lerch from the Virginia Association of Counties to speak against the proposal at the CEUR meeting. 

VACO seems likely to lose the fight this time around, and it should. Blocking solar development leads directly to higher electricity prices for consumers across the state. Moreover, it denies even a minimum of due process to landowners who want to install solar on their property – including farmers who need the income just to hold onto their land. For VACO to insist on counties having carte blanche to reject projects, with no responsibility to justify their decision, is arrogant and an abuse of the local prerogative.

Making the most of what’s already there

Anyone who keeps up with energy news has learned more in the past year about how the grid works than most of us ever wanted to know. There is widespread agreement that grid operator PJM has mismanaged its job, keeping new low-cost generation from interconnecting and driving up utility bills for customers across the region. Unfortunately, there is little that Virginia can do by itself to fix PJM.

But one key bit of information we can use is that utilities and the grid operator build infrastructure to meet the highest levels of demand on the hottest afternoons and coldest nights of the year, leaving much of that infrastructure sitting idle at other times. A recent study showed the grid could absorb far more data center demand than it can now if it weren’t for the 5% of the time when demand is at its highest. 

The issue is framed in terms of data centers being willing to curtail operations at times of peak demand, a solution for the companies that can do it. But there is also a broader point: we don’t need as much new generation if we use what we have better. 

That’s the principle behind several bills that CEUR endorsed. The most significant of these is a bill vetoed by Youngkin last year that almost doubles the targets for short-term energy storage laid out in the Virginia Clean Economy Act and adds targets for long-duration energy storage. As currently drafted, the 2026 version also adds new fire safety standards.

But CEUR did not discuss another obvious approach to increasing storage capacity on the grid: requiring data centers to have storage on-site, replacing highly-polluting diesel generators for at least the first couple of hours of a power outage and using spare battery capacity to assist the grid at other times. If Virginia is going to keep adding data centers at the current rate, this simply has to be part of the plan. We need far more storage than the CEUR bill calls for, and tech companies, not ratepayers, should bear the cost.

CEUR’s utility reform proposals would also help Virginia’s grid get the most out of what we already have. A bill to improve the integrated resource planning process (again, vetoed by Youngkin) requires utilities to consider surplus interconnection service projects to maximize existing transmission capacity. 

CEUR also proposes to have the SCC create a workgroup to study load flexibility. Though the SCC is already doing this through its technical conferences, the proposed legislation would formalize the process and task the work group with making recommendations.

And if all else fails, under another CEUR initiative, utilities would be explicitly allowed to delay service to new customers with more than 90 MW of demand if there wasn’t the generation or transmission available to serve them, or to protect grid reliability. As a fail-safe this is both obvious and inadequate; if a utility doesn’t have that authority now, it certainly needs it — but it needs it for a customer of any size.

Helping low-income residents save money 

CEUR endorsed several proposals that could help residents save money on energy bills. Some, like shared solar, balcony solar, geothermal heat pumps and the distributed solar expansion bill, would benefit anyone willing to make the investment. 

For low-income residents, weatherization and efficiency upgrades remain the focus. Last year the governor vetoed legislation from Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax and Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, which would have required Dominion and APCo to expand their low-income weatherization assistance to reach 30% of qualifying customers.  Sickles has already reintroduced his bill as HB2. CEUR endorsed a different recommendation from staff that the two utilities be required to extend their spending on energy assistance and weatherization programs. 

CEUR did not examine a related bill that has been reintroduced this year following a Youngkin veto last winter, establishing an income-qualified energy efficiency and weatherization task force to produce policy recommendations to ensure repairs and retrofits reach all eligible households. 

However, CEUR endorsed a bill that will require all utilities to disclose to the SCC information about electric utility disconnections, which presumably will inform the work of the task force.  

We’re going to need more

Even taken together, CEUR’s initiatives don’t fully address the biggest energy crunch Virginia has ever faced, and the rising utility bills that result. Possibly that is intentional; Democrats will continue to control the governor’s seat as well as the legislature for at least two years, giving them time to ramp up programs and see what works.

But data center development is so far outstripping supply side solutions that if legislators aren’t more aggressive this year, next year they will find themselves further behind than ever.  

As more bills are filed over the coming weeks, we are likely to see plenty of bold proposals. Hopefully, legislators now understand the urgency, and will be ready to act.

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Virginia Mercury on December 15, 2025. It has been edited to include the last two bills in the section titled “Making the most of what’s already there.”

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Will Big Tech buy you a heat pump?

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Sign at a dog park in Arlington, Virginia. Ivy Main

The data center boom has catapulted Virginia into a serious energy crunch. We have more data centers here than in any other state, by far, and four times as many more are expected in the next few years. Virginia utilities don’t generate enough electricity to serve them all; fully half of our power is imported from the regional grid. But now the regional grid is also running low on reserve power thanks to all the data center growth, according to grid operator PJM. 

Most proposed solutions focus on the supply side: generating more power by building new solar, wind, gas and battery storage; keeping aging power plants running that were previously scheduled for closure; and even reopening Three Mile Island, shuttered three and a half decades ago following the worst nuclear accident in US history. 

More nuanced solutions involve managing the existing generation better. Research shows that the grid could handle more data centers right now if operators ratcheted back consumption at peak times, either through installing batteries or through shifting some operations to non-peak times.

All of these approaches involve generating more power for the grid, or shifting use around to relieve grid stress at peak demand times. But there is another way to make room for new data centers: remove some existing loads. 

A national advocacy organization, Rewiring America, recently released an intriguing proposal to free up grid capacity by retrofitting homes with high-efficiency heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, solar panels and energy storage. The cumulative effect would be to reduce total demand in the residential sector, making capacity available to data centers sooner, while also saving the participating residential consumers thousands of dollars on their electricity bills.  

Oh, and the tech companies are going to pay for it. 

I am reminded of a delightful sign I once saw announcing the coming of the best dog park ever, to be paid for by cats, itself a satire of a certain president’s pledge to build a border wall paid for by Mexico. But, I notice, neither the cats nor Mexico have sent checks yet. Will Big Tech?

Rewiring America thinks so, if the policies are in place to aggregate and verify the household energy savings into a marketable package, and if buying the package means a data center can come online faster and more cheaply. Upgraded appliances and rooftop solar can be installed in a matter of weeks, compared to the many years that may be required to permit and build new generation and transmission. 

Note that the proposed program would not include households that replace gas, propane or oil furnaces with heat pumps. That kind of upgrade results in greater, not less, residential electricity demand, making it counterproductive when the point is to shrink residential electricity usage. 

Replacing electric furnaces with heat pumps would also mainly address the grid’s winter peak, not its summer peak, though the Department of Energy maintains that heat pumps use less energy for cooling than stand-alone air conditioners.

Researchers focused on replacing electric resistance heat with heat pumps because that one swap produces the biggest efficiency bang for the buck. An electric furnace is cheap to install but expensive to use; the reverse is true of a high-efficiency heat pump. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that the conversion would save the average family $1,170 per year on its electricity bill. NREL calculates that heat pumps are cost-effective enough to pay for themselves in under 5 years.

According to Rewiring America, “If hyperscalers paid for 50 percent of the upfront cost of installing heat pumps in homes with electric resistance heating, they could get capacity on the grid at a price of about $344/kW-year — a similar cost to building and operating a new gas power plant, which currently costs about $315/kW-year.” (By my math, it’s an extra 10%, which might be acceptable to a power-hungry tech customer as a sort of rush fee.)

The report repeats the calculations for other technologies. Ductless heat pumps would replace baseboard electric heat. Heat pump water heaters would replace conventional electric water heaters. Solar panels paired with battery storage could displace electricity the home would otherwise draw from the grid.

Further capacity could come from home batteries. The report posits, “If every single-family household in the U.S. installed a home battery, and those with a suitable roof installed a 5 kW solar system (about 11 solar panels), they could collectively generate 109 GW of increased capacity on the grid.We assume that households charge the battery off-peak, either from the grid or from rooftop solar, and they discharge the battery during peak periods to reduce the household’s contribution to peak demand.” 

The researchers estimate that a mass purchasing program could squeeze costs of solar and storage down by 40%, primarily through reduced customer acquisition costs and cheaper permitting. Then the data center operators would pay 30% of this lower cost. By buying solar and storage at this now much-reduced price, households would get electricity at about a 30% discount off utility rates, while the tech companies would be able to buy capacity at a cost comparable to that of building a new gas plant. 

You’ll notice the proposal assumes tech companies pay only a portion of the costs for the residential upgrades, so residents still face upfront costs – 50% of the cost of heat pumps, 70% of a hopefully-lowered price for solar and batteries. Rewiring America calculates that residents will come out ahead under all scenarios, while the data centers will pay only a little more than they would otherwise have to pay, buying capacity they might not otherwise be able to get. 

Because Virginia has so many more data centers than anywhere else on earth, Rewiring America calculates that all of these investments would meet only 25% of our projected new data center demand. Other states could do much better, fully meeting projected new demand across most of the country and even exceeding it in about half the states. Virginia would presumably stand to benefit from surplus capacity in other PJM states. 

Obviously, these calculations describe a best-case scenario, and I have my doubts about whether the uptake would be anywhere near what they believe is possible. Still, even capturing just a portion of the efficiency potential Rewiring America believes is there would relieve some of the pressure on the grid. 

But is there really that much low-hanging efficiency fruit in Virginia? If the NREL data that the researchers use is correct, more than 300,000 single family homes in Virginia have electric furnaces. Yet electric furnaces are notoriously inefficient and expensive to operate, and heat pumps have been around for decades. Our utilities have been running energy efficiency programs for years that are supposed to help residents save energy. Can there really be that many single-family homes that have not converted to heat pumps yet?

I consulted Andrew Grigsby, a home energy efficiency expert who is currently the energy services director at Viridiant, a nonprofit focused on sustainable buildings. Grigsby shared my doubts about the accuracy of NREL’s estimate of the number of homes with electric resistance heat, saying it was at odds with his experience. He also felt that an efficiency program would save more energy at less cost by targeting improvements to the needs of each home, instead of supplying a blanket solution.

But he also refuted my assumption that most of the low-hanging fruit should have been picked by now. “Virginia has 100,000 homes (at least) where three hours work and $50 in materials would reduce heating/cooling costs by 25%  — via fixing the obvious, massive duct leakage,” he said in an email.

This doesn’t mean Rewiring America’s approach wouldn’t save energy; rather, it supports the conclusion that there is a massive opportunity for energy efficiency savings that Virginia hasn’t fully tapped into. 

Legislators have tried. The VCEA set efficiency targets for Dominion and APCo, and the SCC followed up with further targets. APCo has consistently met its goals, Dominion has not. A review of Dominion’s sad little list of programs available to homeowners suggests that the problem is a lack of ambition, not a lack of opportunity.

An aggressive, third-party operated efficiency program would complement the Virtual Power Plant (VPP) pilot program that Dominion is developing in accordance with legislation passed in the 2025 session. The VPP’s goal is to shift some consumption to off-peak times, while the Rewiring America proposal would reduce overall consumption. 

Both seek to achieve time-shifting through incentivizing residents to invest in home batteries, their only area of overlap. But whereas the VPP legislation set only 15 MW as its baseline target for home batteries, the Rewiring America proposal could incentivize much more, along with the solar systems to charge them.

The problem remains how to get tech companies to pay for it. My contact at Rewiring America, senior director of communications Alex Amend, pointed me to approaches being undertaken in other states. Minnesota legislation requires data centers to contribute between $2 million and $5 million annually toward energy conservation programs that benefit low-income households. Georgia Power is expected to file a large load tariff that, says Amend, includes pathways for off-site, behind-the-meter solutions.

Here in Virginia, though, both APCo and Dominion, as well as some co-ops, have already submitted large-load tariff proposals to the SCC as part of their rate cases. None of the proposals include incentives for demand reductions anywhere, much less the residential sector. Indeed, given Dominion’s track record on efficiency, the SCC would have to take the initiative to meld a large load tariff for data centers with the VPP program and aggressive home efficiency investments. 

The SCC has announced plans to hold a technical conference on Dec. 12 to examine data center load flexibility. Rewiring America hopes to participate to lay out its proposal in more detail. 

Then maybe we’ll see if the cats will pay for the dog park.

This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on November 10, 2025.

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As Youngkin takes an axe to the deep state, what could possibly go wrong?

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The letter landed in email inboxes Monday morning like a grenade tucked into a plain manila envelope. In keeping with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Directive Number One requiring agencies to eliminate 25% of government regulations “not mandated by federal or state statute,” the administration planned to take its axe to the building code. 

Yes, the building code. The Board of Housing and Community Development has been told to remove a quarter of the rules that protect homes and businesses against fires, bad weather and shoddy workmanship. 

The Board only last summer completed its triennial update of the Virginia building code, so you’d think they would have removed any unnecessary provisions already. But that’s not the point. The point is that the Axe of Freedom must fall wherever regulations gather in big bunches, and the building code is, by definition, a bunch of regulations. 

Wasting no time, the board plans to meet on January 26 to kick off what it is calling “the reduction cycle.” Virginians will have a chance to comment, although in keeping with what I’ve found to be board practice, only the comments the board likes will count. And as the governor appoints the board members, successful opinions will be those that confirm Youngkin’s vision. 

From that perspective, the building code is shot full of nanny state rubbish. It dictates things like safe wiring and roofs that don’t fly off in a storm and plumbing that actually works. The governor no doubt believes we can safely trust these kinds of things to profit-maximizing corporations without state inspectors second-guessing their work. (I assume the requirement for inspections also falls to the Axe. There is nothing more nanny-state than inspections.)

But if the government does away with standards, won’t builders cut corners? Yes, of course they will. That is the whole point, because then they can make more money. And making money is the ultimate conservative value, second only to owning the libs. 

As for the people who wind up living in unsafe, flimsy firetraps, I expect the administration thinks it’s about time those snowflakes took personal responsibility for the quality of their homes. If they can’t correct hidden defects before a house erupts in flames or grows black mold or the basement floods, that’s on them. 

Housing advocates worry the administration might especially target energy efficiency requirements, though Lord knows the board already watered those down plenty, and illegally so. But things can always get worse, and Youngkin seems committed to ensuring they do. 

(Indeed, that would make a great tagline for Youngkin’s 25% initiative. “Glenn Youngkin: Making Virginia Government One-Quarter Worse.” Feel free to use it, governor, with my compliments.)

Anyway, excising the energy efficiency section of the housing code could be a retro move to appeal to old folks’ nostalgic yearning for the days when houses were so drafty you could feel a breeze with the windows closed. Maybe you never thought we’d let new homes get built that were like those of my childhood, where the kitchen pipes froze when the temperature plunged unless you put a hot water bottle in the cupboard under the sink and left the faucet dripping. 

But here we are. Will the board also remove the bans on lead paint and asbestos insulation?

The building code may be the first place to look for regulations to cut, but reaching his 25% goal will require Youngkin to take the Axe of Freedom to regulations wherever they lurk. And they lurk all over the place. Virginia’s administrative code contains 24 titles. 

One colleague suggests simply removing every fourth word from every section of every title, which would have the virtue of wreaking havoc with the entire Deep State bureaucracy at once. And it would keep lawyers busy! Though not everyone would appreciate that feature (and sure enough, my colleague is a lawyer).

Another easy option might be to just remove a quarter of the titles indiscriminately. Chopping off the last 6 of the 24 would eliminate the following: 

     • Public safety (creating an interesting experiment in anarchy) 

     • Public utilities and telecommunications (turning the management of these critical functions over to the private sector, but what could go wrong?) 

     • Securities and retail franchising (as I have only a dim idea of what those are all about, it’s okay by me, but I expect these things have their defenders) 

     • Social services (this could be dicey when combined with the anarchy thing) 

     • Taxation (a popular title to jettison, with the added benefit of making the rest of government unworkable) and 

     • Transportation and motor vehicles (which would either allow everyone to speed to their heart’s content, or mean no one would do road repair; we’d just have to see how that went)

You will object that I’m proposing a totally mindless approach to regulatory reform. On the contrary, I’m just trying to help implement the governor’s regulatory reform agenda using the same level of care and foresight he did. 

Let the Axe of Freedom fall!

This article was published in the Virginia Mercury on January 25, 2023. Later that day, the Department of Housing and Community Development sent out another letter, this one scheduling an additional meeting for January 31 due to “quorum concerns” surrounding the upcoming January 26 meeting. No explanation was offered as to why board members had chosen to absent themselves.

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Houses can be built to use much less energy. Why aren’t they?

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A house under construction in McLean, VA
A home under construction in McLean, Virginia. Ivy Main

Every three years, a nationwide group of building safety professionals known as the International Code Council (ICC) publishes updated model building codes that form the basis for most U.S. state and local building codes. ICC codes address essential features like structural integrity, fire safety, plumbing and energy use. As technologies improve, so do the model codes. A home built to the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code(IECC), for example, uses 9.38% less energy than one built to the 2018 model code, which was itself a significant improvement on the 2015 model code, etc.

Most home buyers take these things for granted. We don’t know the ins and outs of building technologies or codes, and we don’t want to. It is the job of ICC professionals to set modern standards, and the job of state and local government to ensure builders meet them. Right?

Except it doesn’t always work that way. Some states and localities do adopt each new iteration of the model codes as a matter of course; Maryland is one such state. Across the river in Virginia, however, important energy efficiency elements of the residential building code are stuck all the way back in 2009, because the builder-dominated board in charge of Virginia’s building code refuses to adopt more rigorous standards. 

This intransigence has cost Virginia residents millions of dollars over the years in higher energy bills, especially for heating and cooling. A July 2021 analysis by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory showed that adopting the 2021 IECC would save Virginians $2.5 billion over 30 years, the typical mortgage term. Their analysis assumed mortgages included the added cost of meeting the updated requirements, so the $2.5 billion is pure savings, reflected in yearly cash flow savings averaging $250 per homeowner.

Faced with high utility bills, owners of existing homes sometimes spring for expensive retrofits to upgrade heating and cooling systems, install new windows and add insulation. These investments often pay off in lower utility bills, but it costs more to retrofit than to build it right the first time. There are also limits to how much energy can be saved through retrofits. It can be very difficult, for example, to add insulation to the walls of an existing home. The right time to make a house weather-proof and energy efficient is during design and construction. 

Builders resist meeting the highest efficiency standards for one simple reason: it costs more to build high-efficiency homes, cutting into profits. Builders insist they are just trying to keep home prices down, but that rings hollow. Anyone who has gone house-shopping knows the price of a home is determined by supply and demand, not building cost. Builders will charge whatever they can get. 

Builders also say home buyers don’t ask for efficient homes, but that claim is also suspect. Unlike granite counters and high-end finishes, energy upgrades are frequently invisible to buyers, so they don’t know to ask for them or how to evaluate any claims a builder makes about them. Let’s face it, most of us wouldn’t know an R-value if a batt of insulation fell on our heads. Nor should we have to know. This is why we have building codes.

Unfortunately, protecting consumers from drafty homes and high utility bills is not a priority of the building industry and its allies that control Virginia’s code adoption process. For years the Board of Housing and Community Development (BHCD) has refused to adopt the full model efficiency code, leaving old exceptions in place. Standards for wall insulation and air leakage (the measure of how drafty a home feels) haven’t been updated since 2009.

The cost to residents mounts with each failed opportunity. Most people don’t buy new homes, after all. They buy (or rent) existing homes built according to previous building codes. BHCD’s repeated failures to raise standards condemns residents to decades of poorer-quality homes. Lower-income Virginians, in particular, end up energy burdened by living in homes that are unnecessarily expensive to heat and cool.

The General Assembly knows this is a problem. Virginia law has long required BHCD to adopt standards consistent with model codes such as the IECC. Faced with the board’s continuing intransigence, in 2021 legislators passed a new  law directing BHCD to “consider adopting Building Code standards that are at least as stringent as those contained in [each] new version of the IECC.” 

“Consider” looks like a loophole you could drive a truck through, but the new law goes on to add a specific requirement that the BHCD “shall assess the public health, safety, and welfare benefits of adopting standards that are at least as stringent as those contained in the IECC, including potential energy savings and air quality benefits over time compared to the cost of initial construction.”  

Now that sounds like a slam-dunk for adoption of the IECC standards, given the studies confirming that building to the higher standards benefits occupants and the public with better air quality and with utility bill savings over time that far exceed what it costs a builder to meet those standards. Legislators and advocates who worked to pass the legislation reasonably expected BHCD to adopt the 2021 IECC in its entirety, if not go beyond it.

That did not happen. During the slow process of updating Virginia’s residential building code over the ensuing months, BHCD never took the new law seriously. It never conducted the required analysis, and there is no indication it even “considered” adopting the full 2021 IECC standards, in spite of in-depth comments from experts and testimony from the public.

The building code update BHCD proposed in December of 2022 and approved in its final form on August 28 of this year neither removed past weakening amendments nor adopted more stringent standards.  Indeed, BHCD even decided this year to roll some commercial efficiency standards back to 2006 levels! 

Perhaps this sad state of affairs should not surprise us too much, given who our governors  – past and present  – have appointed to the board. By my count, 8 of the 11 appointed members  represent home builders; another member works for a mortgage company. The foxes are in charge of the hen house. 

Those appointments were not a matter of luck. Public records show construction and real estate companies gave almost $13 million to Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign for governor, the second largest industry donor to his campaign. Four years previously, the industry donated “only” $2.5 million to the campaign of Youngkin’s Democratic predecessor, Ralph Northam. In both cases, the board appointments that followed heavily favored the home building industry, with the result that Virginia’s residential building codes seem to be permanently stuck in the past.

Virginia leaders pride themselves on being pro-business, but that doesn’t have to mean being anti-consumer. The commonwealth as a whole would benefit from a housing stock that is more weather-resilient and healthier for occupants, that saves energy, and that reduces residents’ utility bills.   

Is that really too much to ask?

This article first appeared in the Virginia Mercury on October 19, 2023.

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Washington Gas loves its customers too much for their own good

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Shows a lit gas stove ring
Choose your fuel source carefully: you are likely to have to live with your decision for the next 10-20 years. Image: iamNigelMorris, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Washington Gas has been emailing its Virginia customers this month to offer them rebates if they buy new gas appliances, including home heating equipment (up to $700) and water heaters (up to $400). What the message doesn’t say is that this is a terrible deal. Customers will be able to get far bigger incentives if they wait until January and buy electric equipment instead.

Under the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Uncle Sam will provide tax credits of up to $2,000 per year for electric heat pumps that provide both heating and air conditioning as well as heat pump water heaters. Lower-income customers will be able to access upfront discounts of up to $8,000 for a heat pump, $1,750 for a water heater, $840 for an induction stove, and other amounts for additional upgrades. If you’re converting from gas and your electric panel isn’t sized to handle the extra electric load, the IRA will help with an upgrade. (For a full rundown of rebates and tax credits for homes, see this list from Rewiring America.)

It used to be that gas furnaces were more efficient and cheaper to operate than most electric heating options, but today the reverse is true: An EnergyStar heat pump uses energy more efficiently and costs less to operate than a fossil fuel furnace or boiler. A heat pump water heater, which I’d never even heard of until recently, is more efficient than either gas or a standard electric hot water heater and, again, saves money on operation.

Advances in heat pump technology and induction stoves, concerns about climate change and growing awareness of the dangers of burning fossil fuels indoors mean the switchover from gas to electricity would have happened without the IRA. But the IRA’s rebates are expected to goose the transition and transform the building sector.

Many consumers haven’t heard about the IRA’s rebates yet, and they may not have given much thought to home electrification. They need this information, but they sure won’t get it from their gas company.

Washington Gas is pushing its gas appliance rebates now for an even bigger reason, though, and one that makes it especially important that customers give them a pass: Installing an expensive new gas furnace locks you into the company’s fond embrace for the life of the furnace, no matter how high natural gas prices go.

It’s true that electric appliances will further tie you to your electric utility (unless you have solar panels), and electricity rates have been going up as well. But electricity rates are going up mainly because fossil fuel costs have skyrocketed. Dominion Energy Virginia, for example, cited a 100% increase in the price of natural gas when it asked for a rate hike this summer. As the electric grid gets greener year by year, lower-priced wind and solar energy will have a moderating effect on electricity prices. Your gas utility, on the other hand, will never have anything to sell you but gas.

It gets worse. Gas companies have to maintain their network of pipelines and other infrastructure regardless of how many customers they have. Those costs will be spread over a shrinking rate base as more and more customers switch over to electricity, raising rates for the remaining customers. If you buy a new gas furnace now, you will be trapped in that shrinking pool of customers, paying ever more to maintain pipelines.

Today, Washington Gas charges customers a flat “system charge” of $11.25 per month, plus supply and distribution costs based on how much gas is used that month. Customers who electrify their homes escape the monthly system charge and gain the convenience of dealing with just one utility. But the real savings come in not being part of a shrinking rate base paying an ever-larger share of the gas company’s fixed costs.

That makes Washington Gas’s rebate offer doubly dangerous for customers who don’t know about the IRA. Someone whose old gas furnace is on the fritz might see the email and decide to use that small rebate to buy a new gas furnace, when they would be far better off keeping the old one limping along for a few more months. Come 2023, they would then reap the benefit of an electric heat pump with a much larger rebate or tax credit.

Consumers are set to save a lot of money and energy under the IRA’s incentives for home electrification — but not if they get locked into fossil fuels first.

This post was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on October 28, 2022.

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With a federal windfall incoming, Virginia should require school districts to build to green standards

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The solar panels powering Arlington, Virginia’s Discovery Elementary School, seen through the windows of a science classroom. Photo by Ivy Main

More than $4.3 billion in federal stimulus dollars will be flowing to Virginia this year as part of the American Rescue Plan, with cities and counties in line for another $2.7 billion. In a joint statement in May, Governor Northam and Democratic leaders laid out spending priorities that included rehabilitating and upgrading the infrastructure in public schools. The General Assembly plans to meet for a special legislative session in August to allocate the funds. In addition to the federal money, Virginia also finds itself in the happy position of having surplus funds of its own to spend.

As it stands now, the federal funds cannot be used for new school construction, a restriction that upsets school officials in areas with aging schools and no budget to replace them. But whether some money is spent on new schools or not, the General Assembly should not just throw dollars out the door and hope for the best. Virginia has an enormous opportunity to improve student health and learning, correct historic injustices, and meet the demands of the climate crisis, but only if the right standards are in place from the outset.

First, funding should be prioritized to Title 1 schools, which are those with at least 40 percent of children from low-income families. Given Virginia’s history of segregation and racism, a high number of Title 1 schools are in Black communities, while others are in parts of rural Virginia that have been left behind economically.  Title 1 schools on average are older and in worse condition than schools in more affluent areas, and the students are more likely to suffer from asthma and other health problems that are exacerbated by mold and poor indoor air quality. Improving indoor air quality and student well-being should be the primary goals for all new or renovated facilities, and it makes sense to start with the students most in need.

Second, while many localities are attracted to the idea of shiny new schools, in most cases it takes less time and costs less to retrofit an old school that is structurally sound than to tear it down and build new. It’s also better for the environment, even if the new school would be built to a “green” standard. Children don’t need new buildings; they need healthy, high-performing buildings. A beautiful remodel of the historic school their parents and grandparents attended could be just what the doctor ordered.

Third, new or renovated schools should be required to meet the highest standards for energy efficiency, including windows, insulation and HVAC. New construction should also be all-electric, as should most renovated buildings. This maximizes taxpayer savings on energy costs over the lifetime of the building, supports the goal of healthy indoor air, and is consistent with Virginia’s commitment to phase out fossil fuels.

Fourth, if the roof will be new or upgraded, it should be made solar-ready, allowing the school to take advantage of third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs) or solar services agreements to install solar panels. Leveraging private capital to pay for the school’s primary energy source stretches construction dollars. These agreements provide financing for solar facilities at no upfront cost and typically save money for schools from the outset. Once the solar panels are paid off, energy bills plummet and savings pile up.

New schools and deep retrofits can even achieve net-zero status affordably, and ought to be required to do so in most cases. Net-zero schools become a source of community pride and offer educational benefits as students learn about energy and how solar panels work. According to a study conducted for Fairfax County Public Schools, the additional upfront cost of building a net-zero-ready school (one that will produce as much energy as it uses once solar panels are added) is only about 5 percent more than standard construction, and the additional cost is recovered through energy savings in under 10 years. Renovating older schools to net-zero costs 11 percent more, but still pays off in 15 years.

Even if we weren’t worried about climate, these standards would make sense for student health and taxpayer savings. Yet today, school districts are not required to build high performance schools, and most don’t. The result is higher operating costs, and in some cases school boards being told that their brand-new schools won’t support solar. Solar companies say it’s probable that solar would be just fine, but this shouldn’t even be an issue. Yet it will continue to be cited as an obstacle if solar-readiness is not made standard.

Our children deserve better. Virginia should seize this year’s historic opportunity to invest in healthy, high-performing schools that are free of fossil fuels and will deliver long-term benefits for taxpayers and the climate.

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Climate action begins at home. (Literally. With houses.)

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cartoon pig laying bricksYou remember the story of the Three Little Pigs. First the little pigs built themselves a house out of straw, but the big, bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew it down. Barely escaping with their lives, the little pigs built a new house out of sticks, but again the big, bad wolf blew it down. Wiser at last, the little pigs built their third house out of brick, and they lived happily ever after because the wolf could not blow it down.

When you were a child, you probably did not realize what must be obvious to you now: the story is really about the importance of building codes. Shoddy construction brings nothing but grief, as the little pigs learned, and in the end it costs you more than if you had used high-quality materials right from the start.

The story is silent on whether our young porcine heroes also concerned themselves with the energy performance of their house, but it stands to reason they would have taken an interest in the U factors of windows and the R values of wall and ceiling insulation. Their experience with tropical storm-force wolf breath would have given them an appreciation for the snuggest possible construction. Possibly they even went on to put solar panels on their roof and an electric vehicle in the garage, but on this we can only speculate.

I bring up this story now because Virginia is in the final stages of adopting an update to its residential building code, a process the Board of Housing and Community Development undertakes every three years. In addition to ensuring the safety of wiring and plumbing and so forth, the Uniform Statewide Building Code sets standards that determine whether a new home is drafty and expensive to heat and cool, or will be comfortable, healthy and frugal with energy.

Remarkably, the board is currently proposing to continue outdated efficiency standards dating back years instead of adopting the more energy-saving provisions of the latest International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), or even going beyond the IECC to Earth Craft or Passive House standards.

In spite of the global pretensions of its name, the IECC is a national model code. Virginia law specifically instructs the board to refer to the IECC in adopting provisions that permit buildings to be constructed at least cost “consistent with recognized standards of health, safety, energy conservation and water conservation.” The code suggests that the board may go beyond the IECC for purposes of health and safety, but should not fall short of its standards.

So why is the board proposing lower standards? As far as we know, there is no wolf lobby advocating for flimsy homes, but there is a homebuilder lobby doing its own share of huffing and puffing — and Virginia’s code adoption process gives the homebuilders an outsized role in the decision-making process.

Better-insulated houses cost builders slightly more to build. They pass along the added costs if they can, but if buyers won’t pay more, the higher costs cut into profits. This being bad for business, builders prefer to lobby for lower standards that are cheaper to meet, insisting they have only the poor buyers’ pocketbooks at heart.

Their argument is, if you will pardon the expression, hogwash. Research demonstrates that houses built to the highest efficiency standards save far more money on energy over time than they add to the upfront cost of the house. This becomes especially important for occupants who don’t make much money and who struggle to afford utility bills.

The board should ignore homebuilder objections and put the needs of building occupants first. Gov. Ralph Northam made it clear with his Executive Order 43 last fall that the commonwealth is now committed to a path of clean energy and energy efficiency. Bringing energy costs down for residents is not a side effect of the energy transition, but a feature. As he noted in the order, “Low-income households pay proportionately more than the average household for energy costs and often experience negative long-term effects on their health and welfare.”

The climate crisis also makes it urgent that we use building codes to reduce our fossil fuel use. The Virginia Clean Economy Act will transition the electric sector to clean energy, but it does not require buildings to become more efficient. This is a problem because buildings represent 40 percent of all energy use and houses typically last between 40 and 100 years.

Some retrofits can be made later, at higher cost, but the cheapest and simplest approach is to build houses snugly to begin with. They should also be sited with solar in mind and have wiring in place to make solar easy. Ultimately (and “ultimately” has got to be pretty darn soon), we have to start building homes that produce as much energy as they use.

The board is accepting comments on its proposal through June 26. The Sierra Club has set up a webpage to forward comments urging the board to adopt high efficiency standards.

Update July 1: The Board of Housing and Community Development is no longer accepting written comments from the public on its proposed updates to the building code. Advocates may write to Governor Northam asking him to insist that the Board at least adopt the provisions of the 2018  International Energy Conservation Code, and additional measures recommended by the Sierra Club’s comments to the Board to save more energy and combat climate change.  

An earlier version of this article appeared originally in the Virginia Mercury on June 23, 2020.

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COVID-19 throws a lemon at Virginia’s plan for an energy transition. It’s time for lemonade.

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solar panels on a school roof

The solar panels on Wilson Middle School are saving money for Augusta County taxpayers. Photo courtesy of Secure Futures.

In mid-March, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation to transition our economy from fossil fuels to clean energy over the coming years. Two weeks later, Virginia shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the businesses whose very existence is now in peril are the energy efficiency companies and solar installers we will be counting on to get us off fossil fuels.

Home weatherization and energy efficiency programs have come to an almost complete halt in Virginia, including programs run by Dominion Energy Virginia. Nationwide, the energy efficiency sector has lost almost 70,000 jobs. Meanwhile, companies that install solar, especially rooftop systems, report plummeting sales. The Solar Energy Industries Association reports that nationally, 55 percent of solar workers are already laid off or suffering cutbacks.

The timing seems terrible — although to be fair, there’s no good time for an economy-crushing, worldwide pandemic. Eventually, however, the virus will run its course or be defeated through vaccine or cure. At that point, we will face a choice: we can stagger blinking out into the sunlight aimlessly wondering now what?, or we can execute the well-developed plan we have spent these weeks and months formulating.

Let’s go with the second option.

First, it’s worth remembering that nothing happening now will change the trajectory of clean energy. Solar and wind had banner years in 2019, continuing their steady march to dominance. Wind has become the largest single source of electricity in two states, Iowa and Kansas. The island of Kauai in Hawaii is now 56 percent powered by renewable energy, mostly solar. Across the U.S. wind, solar and hydro produce more electricity than coal. Wind is the cheapest form of new electric generation nationally; solar takes pride of place in Virginia.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel is even more firmly on its way out. Six of the top seven U.S. coal companies have gone into bankruptcy since 2015. That was before the lockdown sent energy demand down, further hurting high-priced coal.

Fracked gas helped kill coal but is itself vulnerable to price competition from renewables. Odd as it sounds, the collapse in oil prices will make natural gas more expensive. That’s because oil producers in Texas and North Dakota are closing wells that produced natural gas along with oil. The tightening supply of gas may finally make fracking companies in Appalachia profitable, but it means higher prices for utilities. Wind and solar will just keep looking better.

The Trump administration is still trying futilely to hold back the tide, but the U.S. will get a lot farther riding the wave than struggling against it. Congressional leaders should declare the country “all in” on clean energy. Instead of bailing out the highly polluting fossil fuel industries, they should put that money to work creating more jobs and economic development — and actually doing something about climate change — with energy efficiency and renewables.

Congress should return the Investment Tax Credit for solar (and offshore wind) to the 30 percent level in effect last year and keep it there, instead of continuing the phase-out now in effect. Congress should also give solar owners the option of taking the credit as a cash grant, as it did during the last recession, and for the same reason: tax-based incentives are less useful in a recession, when companies can’t use the credits.

Virginia’s Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have a critical role to play in convincing their colleagues to support solar. So far neither is rising to the task.

On the state level, Northam did the right thing in signing this year’s energy legislation, allowing utilities and industry members to start planning for the future. But the Clean Economy Act gets wind and solar off to a very slow start; Dominion doesn’t have to build Virginia solar for five years yet. And though the new laws remove many policy constraints on customer-sited solar, they offer next to nothing in the way of financial incentives.

Governor Northam should make it clear he intends to make rooftop solar a priority for next year, along with projects on closed landfills, former coal mine areas, and other brownfields, with a special focus on areas hardest-hit economically. He can also encourage corporations that do business in Virginia to meet their sustainability goals with Virginia wind and solar, starting right now.

The governor should also prioritize building efficiency. Virginia will be adopting a new residential building code this year, and if past years are any indication, its energy efficiency provisions will fall short of the most recent model code standard. It’s up to the governor to make sure Virginia adopts the full code.

Local governments are already taking advantage of suddenly-empty buildings to accelerate maintenance and repairs. But it’s a good time to think bigger, with new financing tools available that make energy efficiency retrofits and solar facilities cash-positive right from the start.

Energy performance contracting allows the energy savings to pay for retrofits. The Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy keeps a list of pre-qualified energy service companies and offers expertise to help local government employees navigate the process.

This year’s legislation also greatly expanded local governments’ ability to finance on-site solar through third-party power purchase agreements, effective July 1. The PPAs are structured so that a school district, municipality or any commercial or non-profit customer can have a solar array installed at no cost, paying just for the energy produced.

In December, Fairfax County awarded contracts for PPAs to install solar on more than a hundred sites, including schools and other government buildings. The county’s contract is “rideable,” which allows other counties and cities to piggyback, getting the same terms without the need for new contract negotiations.

Unfortunately, local governments in southwest Virginia are prevented from pursuing PPAs — not by state legislation, which allows it starting July 1, but by a contract with Appalachian Power that governs their electricity purchases from the utility. The contract is up for renewal this year; disgracefully, APCo is refusing to agree to new terms allowing the localities to use solar PPAs. APCo should back off, and let local governments in economically depressed southwest Virginia start saving money and supporting solar jobs this year.

Arlington County has gone beyond on-site solar, contracting for a share of a large solar farm in southern Virginia that will provide more than 80 percent of the electricity for county government operations. It’s a model any locality can adopt.

Virginia residents and businesses also have good reasons to focus on clean energy. The enforced down-time many people are experiencing means more time to research options, and companies are motivated to offer low prices on energy efficiency upgrades and rooftop solar.

The federal government offers more generous tax credits this year than next. Credits for residential energy efficiency equipment and a deduction for energy efficient commercial buildings expire at the end of this year.

The investment tax credit for solar (as well as for geothermal heat pumps, fuel cells and small wind turbines) stands at 26% for projects placed in operation this year, but it will drop to 22% in 2021. It falls to 10% for commercial customers and disappears altogether for residential customers in 2022. If Congress acts to raise the credit to 30%, buyers will get an even bigger boost. If it doesn’t, there will be a rush this year to get projects done by the end of the year, so customers should secure their place in line now.

Virginia nonprofits have helped hundreds of residents and businesses save money on solar and EV chargers through bulk purchasing programs. Virginia Solar United Neighbors just announced a series of virtual information sessions to promote the Arlington Solar EV Co-op. And LEAP, which closed operations temporarily due to the virus, reports it has restarted two programs, Solarize NOVA and Solarize Piedmont.

In an ideal world, the U.S. would already be well along in executing a comprehensive plan for a clean energy transition, one that includes job retraining for workers, and that resists counterproductive efforts to save the fossil fuel industry. But we can do the next best thing, and use the tools of government, the market and consumer choice to speed us in the right direction.

COVID-19 has handed all of us a big, fat lemon. Let’s make some lemonade.

 

A version of this article appeared originally in the Virginia Mercury on April 30, 2020.