Pursuant to House Bill 106, House Bill 108, Senate Bill 253, and Senate Bill 255 passed by the General Assembly in 2024, the Virginia Department of Energy convened a stakeholder work group to evaluate project incentives for shared solar facilities when they are located on rooftops, brownfields, landfills, are dual-use agricultural facilities, or meet the definition of another category established by the Department of Energy.(*1) Additionally, the Act states that the Department shall give special consideration to projects seeking to leverage funding from the Virginia Brownfield and Coal Mine Renewable Energy Grant Program established pursuant to § 45.2-1725. Finally, the Act requires that the Department shall document the proceedings of the stakeholder work group, submit a written report to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Labor and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor no later than November 30, 2024, and make such report publicly available on the Department's website.

The Virginia Department of Energy organized and facilitated the work group and hosted three virtual public meetings from August 2024 to October 2024 to gather input and feedback to inform this report. The Department also researched policy examples of incentives from other states with community solar or shared solar programs. The conclusions and recommendations contained in this report are reflective of the research presented to the stakeholder work group and the discussions that followed. The contents of this report do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the individual workgroup participants and should be solely attributed to the Virginia Department of Energy unless otherwise stated.

As of the writing of this report, the Virginia Department of Energy has not received any state funding to implement project incentives for shared solar facilities. The Virginia Brownfield and Coal Mine Renewable Energy Grant Program created in 2021 by HB 1925 remains unfunded. Additionally, the Virginia General Assembly has not allocated any other sources of funding to the Department for this purpose. Accordingly, the discussion and recommendations contained in this report are focused on how project incentives could be implemented. The report does not establish any new project incentives for shared solar facilities.
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*1) SB 253 (2024), SB 255 (2024), HB 106 (2024), HB 108 (2024)