Tag Archives: sheep

Unknown's avatar

Solar can save Virginia farms — if government gets out of the way

by
Photo courtesy of the American Solar Grazing Association

It’s not easy to be a farmer in Virginia. Pests, weather, uncertain markets and access to capital are a perennial problem. This year farmers have also had to contend with disruptions from President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs, and an immigration crackdown that has deprived many farms of their experienced labor force. 

 And then there’s climate change and the outward creep of suburban sprawl. No wonder studies show the number of farms in Virginia continuing to shrink, and the age of farmers still in business trending steadily upward. We are losing our family farms.

 That’s why I’m baffled by the resistance to solar in many parts of rural Virginia. 

Farmers who lease part of their land for solar earn a guaranteed, stable income for 25 or 30 years, keep the property in the family, and never have to watch as a subdivision paves over the fields where they played as children. The income from a solar project will be there when a late frost means the loss of that year’s fruit crop or a scorching summer reduces the corn harvest by half.

Indeed, these days the choice is not between farming and solar; farming and solar are increasingly compatible “crops.” Sheep grazing has gotten the most attention in Virginia for its perfect synergy with solar: the sheep thrive in the shade of the solar panels and do the work of vegetation management, which otherwise would require herbicides and machinery. Elsewhere, farmers are raising cattle, poultry, grapevines and shade-loving crops under solar, in a practice collectively known as agrivoltaics.

 The combination of solar and agriculture is spreading rapidly across the country, endorsed by organizations like the American Farmland Trust. Solar sheep grazing is so popular that it has its own trade association, the American Solar Grazing Association. Here in Virginia, at least two sheep grazing companies contract with large solar developers for vegetation management. One, Gray’s Lambscaping, has over 800 sheep at solar projects, and expects to scale up to 5500 sheep by 2028. 

 Meanwhile, the conservation group Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), which typically opposes large solar projects, is demonstrating the feasibility of growing vegetables under solar panels at a community farm in Loudoun County. 

 If solar integrates so well into the agricultural economy, what is the reasoning behind the county ordinances that ban solar or limit it to only a few projects? And why, when a county doesn’t prohibit solar outright, do local leaders so frequently reject permits for projects that meet all their conditions?  

 I’ve received emails from solar haters who regurgitate misinformation about the harms of solar panels, I’ve listened to legislators wax eloquent on the subject of “protecting rural values,” and I’ve sighed in frustration at a few fellow members of the environmental community who, when it comes to it, care less about addressing climate change than about keeping viewsheds pretty. 

 Often the opposition to solar is couched in terms of defending local control of land use decisions. But too many localities use this authority, not to make sure projects are developed responsibly, but to make sure they aren’t developed at all. And to that end, they prevent landowners from using their land in the way the owners have decided they need to. The rejections don’t mean the land returns to being farmed; more likely it means the land will be sold and, quite likely, developed for housing or even – gah! – data centers. If localities cared about saving farmland, they would approve more solar.

 In the last year, the percentage of utility solar projects that receive permits from localities ticked up slightly. One possibility is that the hostility to solar is easing. That would be welcome, but I suspect the more likely reason is that solar companies aren’t pursuing projects where they expect rejection. That’s a loss all around: the localities lose out on tax revenue, their landowners lose out on income, and everyone loses out on low-cost electricity.

 The hostility to solar makes little sense to me. Conservatives who care about property rights typically favor landowners over the government, so why is solar different? To be fair, some conservatives actively support solar, such as the groups Conservatives for Clean Energy and Energy Right.

 On the other side of the political spectrum, liberals and everyone else who cares about climate change should want solar everywhere – and most do, but not all. As for solar and farming, those of any political persuasion who care about farmland preservation should favor solar over subdivisions. And anyone who cares about the farmers themselves should be spreading the gospel of solar. Agrivoltaics is just the icing on the cake that can make everyone feel they didn’t have to compromise.

The legislative response

 Legislators have struggled with this problem for several years now. Many are desperate for new clean energy projects to serve the fast-rising demand for electricity, but they’ve been unable to bring themselves to take authority away from recalcitrant localities. It’s a hard needle to thread.

 Last year members of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR) crafted a multi-part bill designed to give localities all the information they need to make rational decisions about solar permitting, while giving landowners and project developers a right to appeal adverse decisions to the State Corporation Commission (SCC). 

 That bill failed in committee, and this year only a part of it made it into a bill. House Bill 918, from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, sets up a university consortium to provide expertise and guidance, including on solar siting and permitting. 

 Meanwhile, a bill proposed last year by members of the solar industry came closer to passage than the CEUR bill did. The industry bill proposed a suite of rigorous best practices for solar, designed to reassure localities that solar facilities will be good neighbors. 

Among the best practices were farm-friendly provisions like using native pollinator plants, screening with native trees, and incorporating grazing animals or farm crops. Localities would not be allowed to ban solar outright, but would have to make decisions on the merits of each proposal. However, nothing in the bill would have required localities to approve these projects.

 The industry bill foundered last year, but this year it is back with the endorsement of CEUR. In its current form, HB 711 from Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, and Senate Bill 347 from Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, continues to preserve local decision-making, but localities that deny permits to solar projects must report their reasons to the SCC for inclusion in a public database. SB 347 has already been reported from committee and will be heard by the full Senate.

 Only one bill this year is directly aimed at helping farmers install solar. HB 1091 from Del. Amy Laufer, D-Albermarle, adds half a line to Virginia’s right-to-farm law giving farmers a right to install solar if they also use the same land for agricultural activities like grazing or crops.  The effect of Laufer’s bill is that any farmer who wants to combine solar and farming could do so without having to go get a local permit. (The right-to-farm law does not exempt farmers from other laws, so regulations governing erosion, wetland protection, etc. still apply.)

 A more modest bill, developed by PEC and carried by Del. Irene Shin, D-Fairfax, defines agrivoltaics and sets up an advisory panel to determine what qualifies, consider possible requirements and limitations, and make recommendations for next year. That’s encouraging, but unfortunately, the bill defines agrivoltaics specifically to exclude “solar energy generation that replaces the farmer’s primary income.”

Counterfactual definitions like this tend to cause problems. 

If a farmer has a crop failure, and the farm’s major source of income that year is solar, do they no longer qualify? It also suggests that sheep graziers in the business of using their animals for vegetation management at solar projects – i.e., agrivoltaics – could not use the industry-accepted word to describe what they do. Besides, really, don’t we want all solar projects to incorporate agriculture?

 A bill from Sen.David Marsden, D-Fairfax, would task the Department of Energy with setting up a committee of experts to develop solar siting criteria and then score the appropriateness of any proposed site for solar. There’s no indication in the bill that the criteria would include a farmer wanting to include solar among their products, but perhaps it could. However, it would not require localities to approve any projects. 

 It feels inevitable that the future of solar incorporates farming, and the future of farming may well mean incorporating solar. Whether Virginia’s leaders see this yet or not is another question, but they do have their opportunity this year.

This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on January 28, 2026.

Unknown's avatar

Dominion keeps trying to pull the wool over our eyes

by

 

Sheep like these are used to keep grass mowed around solar panels.

Dominion’s ad would have done a better job of distracting us if it had included baby animals. Their failure is my opportunity! These lambs keep the grass short around the solar panels at a farm near New Hope, Virginia. Owners Ann and Riley Murray shared this picture.

When your kid greets you at the door with the cheery news that he’s swept the floor for you without being asked, you are probably right to wonder which breakable item is no longer in its usual place.

I have the same feeling about the series of full-page ads Dominion Energy has taken out in newspapers over the past few weeks bragging about the company’s investments in solar energy. The ads are misleading—I’ll get to that in a minute—but the more interesting question is what the company is up to that it hopes we’re too busy looking at solar panels to notice.

Here are some possible answers:

• It was recently reported that Dominion Energy paid no federal income tax for 2018, in spite of earning over $3 billion in U.S. income. In fact, the company received a $45 million rebate, making its effective tax rate -1%. That’s pretty sharp manipulation of the tax laws. No wonder CEO Thomas Farrell II is the highest paid executive in the utility sector, with a reported $20.6 million in income.

• Most of that untaxed income comes from customers here in Virginia, but not all of it is earned. Let’s recap just a few of the high points: In 2014, the General Assembly passed a law letting Dominion charge customers for hundreds of millions of dollars incurred in planning for a new nuclear plant the company isn’t building. Then in 2015 Dominion persuaded legislators to “freeze” regulators’ ability to examine the books and order refunds of what turned out to be hundreds of millions more in customer overpayments. Regulators said the number might eventually rise as high as a billion dollars. When grumbling about that reached a fever pitch, Dominion persuaded the still-compliant (!) legislature to pass another billlast year letting it spend the money instead of refunding it.

• After getting authority to spend all that customer money, one of Dominion’s first moves was to interpret “spending” as “keeping.” Instead of the massive spending on energy efficiency that the legislature put into the law, Dominion tried to discount the number by 40 or 50% so it could keep the rest as “lost revenue.”

• Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline could shape up to be a huge profit center for the company, but also a huge financial burden for utility customers. Dominion fought hard against a bill this year that would have protected customers if and when the pipeline ever gets built. The company eventually defeated the bill in a Dominion-friendly Senate committee, but not before voting revealed deep fault lines in the House.

• Slides from a presentation to an investor meeting in March show Dominion bragging about Virginia having a favorable regulatory environment (read: utilities get their way).

• That presentation caught the interest of several House Democrats for another reason: it boasted customer-funded spending numbers at least $3 billion higher than it gave its regulators at the State Corporation Commission just two weeks before. In a news release May 2, the seven delegates demanded Dominion produce a full accounting of its future spending plans. Del. Elizabeth Guzman, D-Prince William, whose office issued the release, said “Dominion’s days of facing no consequences when telling Virginians one thing and Wall Street another are coming to an end. The SCC is right to uncover Dominion’s inconsistencies and hold the monopoly accountable since it is Virginia ratepayers who will ultimately pay the price.”

• The delegates also noticed Dominion has decided it wants to make even more profit from its Virginia customers. This spring the company asked the State Corporation Commission to raise its rate of return on common equity from 9.2% to 10.75%, an astounding increase at a time of low interest rates and easy access to capital. Dominion may believe that by overreaching, it will win some middle ground. In the March presentation, Dominion told shareholders the company expects to earn an average 10.2% return on equity from its Virginia investments, still a full percentage point higher than the utility is currently authorized to earn.

• The Virginia Attorney General’s Office is fighting Dominion’s attempts to collect $247 million from ratepayers for environmental upgrades at its Chesterfield power plant, calling the spending “imprudent” given that it will provide “little or no value to customers.”

All of this should feel pretty brazen to Virginia leaders and the public, but when you want something you don’t deserve, it helps to be shameless.

Yet at least some Dominion leaders seem to be aware that other people think the company should be ashamed of its greed, and that some of these people are voters who may eject its friendly legislators from office this fall. Their answer is to run an ad about solar panels to distract us and change the conversation.

But the ad just starts its own conversation — and not in the intended way.

The ad brags, “At Dominion Energy, we’ve increased the number of solar panels in Virginia from 5,250 to over 2 million since 2015. And we’re now the 4th largest solar producer in the nation.”

First off, a minor point, but a symptomatic one: that “fourth largest” claim doesn’t hold up. As of last September, a ranking of the largest solar owners put Dominion in 10th place. Even using the updated number (2,600 MW) from Dominion’s March 2019 investor presentation wouldn’t get the company to fourth place unless other companies have been hastily selling off projects. It does appear Dominion can rightly claim to be the fourth largest solar owner among energy holding companies that own electric utilities. But so what?

The Virginia number catches our attention, though. Two million solar panels sounds like a lot. It’s just that — well, somebody check my math here, but if those are average 300-watt panels, that comes out to 600 MW, which is a pitifully small amount compared to Dominion’s fossil fuel investments. We’re glad to have any solar at all, but it isn’t something to write friends in California about (they’ve got 24,000 MW of solar and counting).

Speaking of California, that and North Carolina are where the rest of Dominion’s solar projects are, in case you’re wondering. The laws are better there. Dominion didn’t write their laws.

Also, while we are at it, almost none of the solar Dominion is developing is for ordinary residents, in spite of what the ad implies. Almost all of it is for data centers and other large customers. Dominion is counting the 350 MW of solar it is developing for Facebook towards the commitment it made to the General Assembly last year to develop 3,000 MW of renewable energy by 2022.

Legislators who thought Dominion would build a lot of solar for regular folks when they agreed to last year’s boondoggle bill should find that disappointing. If they didn’t get solar for their constituents, what exactly did they get?

Unfortunately for Dominion, that brings us back to the long list of things the company was hoping we would ignore while we look at bright shiny objects. Ads about solar panels aren’t enough to distract people from the billions of dollars Dominion is taking from our pockets.

Perhaps the executives at Dominion will conclude the ad just wasn’t good enough. Next time they could try putting sheep in the picture with the solar panels. Especially baby sheep.

Maybe they thought about it and were afraid it would remind Virginians they were getting fleeced.

But they had better try something. Because right now, frankly, no one is distracted.

This article first appeared in the Virginia Mercury on May 6, 2019.