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Happy Friday!
June 20, 2025
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The Energy Right team had another successful, busy week of travel across the Commonwealth! With just under a dozen counties visited, we saw successful passings in solar sitings as well as new solar ordinances that empower landowners. This is what our mission for energy, The Right Way is all about!
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Lloyd’s Farm—Frozen
by Rural Roadblocks
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Amanda Lloyd’s home & retired dairy farm, Louisa County
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Amanda Lloyd’s two-year wait to develop a solar project on her timbered farmland in Louisa County raises a fundamental question: how long should landowners be expected to wait to use their property? Despite meeting all regulatory requirements, Lloyd’s project has stalled amid shifting local priorities and a broader rural resistance to change. Her experience is emblematic of a growing pattern where rural counties may push property rights to the sideline amid perceived threats to the rural character of a community. This back-and-forth of changing, unclear regulations leaves families like hers waiting in limbo.
The consequences go beyond one landowner’s frustration as well. When legally compliant projects that provide a clear value are indefinitely delayed due to political gridlock or local opposition, the process becomes a bottleneck to broader energy transition goals (and economic stagnation). In Lloyd’s case, the absence of clear, statewide guidance has allowed local resistance to override individual initiative. These delays not only discourage responsible land use but also threaten some of Virginia’s more vulnerable communities to falter where other communities are seeing a path to flourish.
This isn’t a conversation just about solar or rural aesthetics—it’s about fairness, consistency, and enabling smart growth. Supporting landowner’s rights comes first; smart, well planned energy initiatives is secondary—and we believe they can go hand in hand. Without a more balanced permitting system that respects local input while aligning with state-level objectives, Virginia risks leaving both landowners like Lloyd and statewide progress behind. If the Commonwealth wants to lead on energy independence, it must also lead on providing the clarity and consistency to make that possible.
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Sheep of the Week
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The Pamplin Farm is working hand-in-hand with solar grazer Matt English, who’s herd grazes beneath the panels, maximizing land usage and showing how fluid agrivoltaics can be. As different communities adapt to different needs and changes, we hope to see even more unique, resourceful adaptations arise!
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Franklin County’s Solar Approval;
Landowner’s Rights and Energy Done Right
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This week, the Franklin County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a 5-megawatt solar facility and the first project to be approved in the county in more than a year. The project site spans a 109-acre parcel, though only 39 acres will be utilized and just 25 acres for solar panels.
The property is uniquely suited for this type of development as it is already crossed by regional transmission lines and a portion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The property is multigenerational, and the decision to change usage doesn’t come lightly. Once used for farming, the land has not produced an agricultural product in over a decade. Understandably, the family expressed a deep connection to the land and a desire to find a way to support themselves without selling it.
After exploring other development opportunities, they ultimately turned to solar: a solution that makes sense given the parcel’s proximity to utility infrastructure all while not sentencing the land industrial permanence. This project not only provides the family with an opportunity to retain ownership of their land, but it also offers significantly more tax revenue and economic benefit to the county and landowners than if the property remained idle.
As several supervisors stated during the hearing, “this is the perfect place for solar.” Their decision shows support for both private property rights and responsible renewable energy development. By approving this project, the Franklin County Board of Supervisors demonstrated a commitment to evaluating projects on their individual merits in alignment with local policy and community goals—that’s energy done the right way!
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Rolling hills in Franklin County
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This week our team went to Albemarle, Botetourt, Brunswick, City of Richmond, Culpeper, Franklin, Hanover, Henrico, Montgomery, Orange, and Sussex counties!
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Sussex County, VA
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The Energy Right team attended a public hearing for a solar project in Sussex County this week. It was encouraging to see so many citizens engaged in this conversation and trying to shape the project to best fit the community, especially the large majority of folks supporting the project. The more our communities can engage, the more it ensures projects are a good neighbor in the community.
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Louisa County landowner caught up in solar farm regulation debate
– Virginia Mercury
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Amanda Lloyd inherited a timbered parcel in Louisa County and, after exploring agricultural options for years, agreed to host a 20 MW solar project spread across 100 acres. Her application met county standards—utilizing natural buffers and complying with ordinances—but was stalled in a 2023 Planning Commission’s 4–4 vote amid concerns about loss of farmland. Meanwhile, attempts to create a Virginia Energy Facility Review Board through SB 1190 (and its companion HB 2126) to provide consistent guidance for local solar siting failed this year. Supporters like Delegate Rip Sullivan argue solar and farming can coexist, and Senator Creigh Deeds emphasized that without such reforms, the Commonwealth won’t meet its Clean Economy Act targets.
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NEXT WEEK
We’ll be traveling to Amherst, Brunswick, City of Richmond, Southampton, and Spotsylvania counties next!
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As Congress negotiates the federal budget, a conservative case emerges for maintaining clean energy investments, particularly in Virginia’s 2nd District. From bolstering military base resilience to attracting private-sector jobs via projects like Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, these initiatives reflect longstanding bipartisan support. Advocates argue energy policy is an economic and national security policy—key to American innovation, energy independence, and global competitiveness against heavily subsidized foreign markets like China.
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