Surry County’s Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend adoption of zoning ordinance amendments that would further restrict the proliferation of solar farms.

The matter will advance to Surry’s Board of Supervisors for a public hearing and final vote.

The matter wasn’t on the supervisors’ Dec. 5 agenda and an agenda for the Jan. 9 meeting hasn’t been published yet.

In 2023, county supervisors adopted an energy policy amendment to Surry’s comprehensive plan setting a 10%, or 15,278-acre, cap on the cumulative developable acreage devoted to energy projects, including solar farms.  

The proposed ordinance amendment would specifically restrict utility-scale solar farms to no more than 7%, or 10,695 acres.  

Surry County has approved three utility-scale solar farms to date. These include the adjacent 2018-approved Spring Grove Solar LLC and Colonial Trail West solar farms and the 2021-approved 1,750-acre Cavalier solar farm spanning the Isle of Wight-Surry county line, roughly 1,300 acres of which are on Surry’s side.

Community Development and Planning Director Horace Wade estimated in October that the existing facilities account for roughly 6% of the proposed acreage cap.

Planning Commission Chairman Eddie Brock, in August, said the proposed 7% cap originated after he and other Surry commissioners returned from a state conference where they learned most localities that have adopted acreage caps for solar farms have set limits of 2% to 3%.   

Isle of Wight County, in 2023, enacted an ordinance capping existing and proposed solar farms at 2% of the county’s “prime” farm soils, or a maximum of 2,446 acres, though supervisors’ September approval of Arlington-based AES Clean Energy’s proposed Sycamore Cross solar farm, which would span more than 2,200 acres across the westernmost edge of the Isle of Wight-Surry county line, will cause the county to exceed the limit. Ten previously approved Isle of Wight solar farms collectively accounted for just over 2,200 acres prior to Isle of Wight’s approval of Sycamore Cross, which will remove another 614 acres of prime farmland from agricultural production.

The draft ordinance would further require utility-scale solar farms, defined as those producing more than 5 megawatts, be surrounded by a minimum 300-foot vegetative buffer from any public right-of-way or the main structure on an adjoining property.  

The Planning Commission’s Nov. 25 recommendation for approval came despite opposition at its Oct. 28 public hearing on the matter that drew only five speakers, all but one in opposition. An AES representative was among the handful of opposition speakers.

Wade said in October that because Sycamore Cross’ Surry phase would be located on six parcels already approved for solar in 2021 as part of the Cavalier project, the proposed 7% cap would not impact that project if adopted. The draft ordinance would further codify a distinction between “utility-scale” and “community-scale” solar projects, defining the latter as those generating more than 1 megawatt but no more than 5 megawatts. The draft ordinance stipulates only utility-scale solar farms would be held to a provision of the 2023 energy policy requiring their location within one mile of existing high-voltage electric transmission lines, though both community-scale and utility-scale projects would be required to go through the conditional use permit process.

There’s also a proposed definition as an accessory use for “distributed solar,” which would refer to solar facilities generating less than 1 megawatt to meet on-site energy demands such as roof-mounted solar panels.