The state’s milestone Clean Economy Act spurred impressive growth in renewable power. Now, that future is at risk.
By Elizabeth McGowan
Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO
Pound, Va.—Solar on land once mined for coal was a “bit of a notion” for The Nature Conservancy when it purchased the tri-state Cumberland Forest Project in 2019.
That musing escalated to certainty a year later when Virginia legislators approved the milestone Clean Economy Act, which championed renewable power by setting production targets.
“People got jazzed about utility-scale solar with that law,” said Abingdon, Va.-based Greg Meade, who directs TNC’s overarching Cumberland Forest Project. “That appetite convinced us to proceed.”
Carbon-curbing VCEA mandates obligate the state’s two investor-owned electric utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, to switch to carbon-free portfolios by 2045 and 2050, respectively.
TNC has outlined plans for 509 megawatts of solar—at least 189 MW of panels and 320 MW of storage—via 25 projects across the 253,000 acres it’s restoring in Central Appalachia. That scale of development would be enough to power roughly 85,000 homes.
TerraForm Power is slated to construct the 20-MW Bull Run solar array on this 130-acre site in Wise County as part of The Nature Conservancy’s Cumberland Forest Project. Photo by Christopher Tyree//VCIJ
Granted, those additions would be a relatively small amount of the initial 2,700 MW of energy storage and 16,100 MW of solar (and onshore wind) spelled out at the law’s outset. But they could still contribute to a VCEA-induced solar juggernaut.
Virginia, where utility-scale solar barely registered before 2020, now ranks in the top 10 nationwide for total installed capacity, according to Solar Energy Industries Association statistics. The 7,133 MW up and running are enough to power 817,000 homes. Almost 9% of the state’s electricity now comes from the sun.
However, Virginia’s impressive climb could slow dramatically with recent, Republican-led assaults on federal incentives for renewable energy. In August, for instance, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would cancel $156 million in grant funds for Virginia under Solar for All, a program geared for low- to moderate-income households.
This month, the Department of Transportation took aim at offshore wind projects, announcing it would withdraw $39 million from the Norfolk Offshore Wind Logistics Port and reneging on a $20 million commitment to the Portsmouth Marine Terminal’s Offshore Wind Development Project.
Norfolk-based Jim Purekal of Advanced Energy United isn’t alone with his fears that solar’s meteoric rise in Virginia will be hamstrung by the slashing of investment and production tax credits wrapped into H.R. 1, signed into law by President Donald Trump on Independence Day.
His disquiet is accentuated in an eight-page report issued by the state’s Commission on Electric Utility Regulation in response to H.R.1.
In Virginia, the budget reconciliation measure would squelch the anticipated development of 15 gigawatts of solar capacity and 1.1 GW of battery capacity by 2035, according to the analysis by Energy Innovation, a non-partisan energy policy think tank with an office in Washington, D.C. Combined, solar and batteries would make up the bulk of the 17 GW in energy generation capacity losses in Virginia by 2035, the think tank calculated.
“We need them to make some tough decisions to support clean energy financially and save money for ratepayers.”
Virginia's solar workforce stands at close to 5,000. Trump administration policies could stunt that success.
Purekal also worries that measures in Trump’s far-reaching federal law will be detrimental to the steady growth of solar jobs in Virginia and the companies that employ 4,938 workers, according to SEIA. Those jobs are connected to the 199 solar companies—27 manufacturers, 80 developers and 92 related entities—across the state.
Virginia’s energy needs are soaring, mostly propelled by a surge in the construction of electricity-hungry data centers. Unconstrained demand for power is predicted to double over the next decade, according to a December independent forecast commissioned by Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
João Ferreira, a regional economist with the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center, lauded TNC for being spot-on with its gumption for siting solar developments on reclaimed minelands.
While projects in mountainous settings tend to be smaller and cost more per megawatt, Ferreira said, one silver lining is that they often produce more jobs and related economic benefits.
TNC reached some of those same conclusions in its nationwide “Mining the Sun” report released in 2024. One analysis stated that Virginia had enough reclaimed coal mines and other degraded lands statewide—some within the 153,000 acres in the Cumberland Forest Project—to balance the meeting of VCEA’s solar requirements with keeping mature forests and valuable agricultural land intact.
The strategy outlined in “Mining the Sun” was birthed about six years ago when the country’s largest environmental organization grasped that opposing all development on properties it sought to preserve wasn’t a productive approach to conservation. That realization prompted TNC to propose a blueprint for scoring climate, conservation and community victories by siting clean energy infrastructure on minelands, landfills, brownfields and other industrial sites.
It’s significant for TNC’s initiative that the Clean Economy Act requires Dominion to procure 200 MW of solar or wind on brownfields—which include reclaimed minelands—by 2035. The utility is allowed to venture outside its service territory boundaries to do so. A portion of Dominion’s 50-MW Highlands Solar array will be installed on the Conservancy’s Cumberland Forest acreage.
TNC expects to put the entire Cumberland Forest Project up for sale to a like-minded buyer in the next five or six years. It paid $130 million for the acreage in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
While functioning solar installations will certainly add to the property’s value and boost returns for investors, Meade notes that the presence or absence of such projects “won’t make or break a deal with the types of potential buyers we’re seeking.”
Still, he added, pushing more megawatts across the finish line equates to higher rewards for restoring the environment and the economies of down-on-their-luck communities.
“The primary benefit of solar on minelands is demonstrating that it can be done at all,” Meade emphasized. “That’s a really big deal.”
Reach Elizabeth McGowan at elizabeth.mcgowan@renewalnews.org