Surry County supervisors voted 3-1 on Feb. 13 to enact restrictions on the proliferation of solar farms, including a 7% cap on countywide developable acreage devoted to solar.

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 acreage devoted to all energy projects, including solar. The new zoning ordinance amendments explicitly restrict utility-scale solar farms to no more than 7%, or 10,695 acres. It further requires utility-scale solar farms, defined as those capable of generating more than 5 megawatts, to have a minimum 300-foot-wide vegetative buffer between the fenced project site and any public right-of-way or the main structure of an adjoining property.

Vice Chairman and Carsley District Supervisor Breyon Pierce made the motion to approve the changes with the addition of what County Attorney Lola Perkins called a “grandfather clause” that would allow any project that has a pending rezoning or permit application for a new solar farm that has yet to receive approval to be subject to the zoning ordinance and 10% cap in place prior to Feb. 13. 

Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Elliott and Surry District Supervisor Tim Calhoun joined Pierce in supporting the motion. Bacon’s Castle District Supervisor Walter Hardy cast the dissenting vote. Dendron District Supervisor Amy Drewry was absent.

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 these existing facilities account for roughly 6% of the acreage cap.

The revised zoning ordinance “provides much-improved requirements for solar projects in our county” and “helps companies that are coming to us to better understand how to be good partners with us,” said Planning Commissioner Dianne Cheek, who joined her colleagues last fall in unanimously recommending the new restrictions.

Cheek was one of five speakers at a same-day public hearing that preceded the supervisors’ vote. Only she and one other speaker said they supported the changes as-is. Among the three opponents was Terra Pascarosa, an environmental consultant from Virginia Beach who called the cap “arbitrary.”

“Virginia needs more solar, we need more wind, we need more battery storage to satisfy the Virginia Clean Economy Act,” Pascarosa said.

The 2020 legislation mandates Dominion Energy transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045. Over the past two years, Virginia legislators have proposed bills, which to date haven’t become law, to increase state oversight of the permitting process for large solar farms they say are essential for meeting the 2045 goal.

The Planning Commission’s former chairman, Eddie Brock, said last fall that the 7% cap had originated after he and other 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%. Among them is Isle of Wight, which 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 Isle of Wight supervisors’ approval last fall 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 exceed the 2% 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.

Surry’s ordinance now distinguishes between utility-scale and “community-scale” solar, defining the latter as projects generating more than 1 megawatt but less than 5. The ordinance stipulates only utility-scale solar farms will 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 now a 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.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct that Cavalier Solar is 1,750 acres, not 1,650.