The 3-year fight for rooftop solar for Virginia’s schools

Editorial note: This week, E/lectrify welcomes a story from veteran environmental reporter Elizabeth McGowan, who has been following the ongoing efforts of Virginia’s solar installers to repeal Dominion Energy’s exorbitant and unnecessary requirements for commercial solar projects to connect to the utility’s distribution system. I am taking time off over the next week to do some deep thinking about plans for E/lectrify in 2026. I remain grateful for all the support the newsletter has received this year and welcome your ideas for how I can increase the newsletter’s reach and impact. Happy holidays to all!

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Just as Fairfax County was advancing a bid to downsize its electric bills by up to $60 million by outfitting 87 of its 199 schools with solar arrays, Dominion Energy concocted over-the-top fees that almost pulled the plug.

Determined not to be left in the dark, the Northern Virginia public school district has spent several years regrouping. Leaders are now powering forward with a pared-down proposal to put solar on 34 school rooftops—enough to save the district an estimated $15.7 million over the 25-year lifespan of the panels.

Why the drastic contraction?

Fairfax schools couldn’t afford the exorbitant, specialized equipment that Dominion began requiring in 2022 to connect larger rooftop arrays to the electric grid. And they aren’t alone.

Small businesses, municipalities and schools near Charlottesville and Richmond in both Albemarle and Henrico counties, respectively, and elsewhere in the power company’s Virginia service territory are delaying, shrinking or canceling rooftop projects because of similar financial hurdles. 

Enter Tony Smith, the CEO and founder of Staunton-based Secure Solar Futures, a company that has helped several Virginia school districts go solar (pictured above, center, celebrating a rooftop installation for the Roanoke public schools).

The renewable energy trailblazer has been challenging Dominion’s surprise interconnection requirements since the behemoth of an investor-owned utility began demanding them on Virginia projects exceeding 250 kilowatts.

Smith and his solar advocacy colleagues laid out their case during a recent two-day hearing when the three-member State Corporation Commission—Virginia’s utility regulators—listened to testimony from both sides.

Following the hearing, Smith was confident that the commissioners will be prepared to cut small-scale independent solar developers some slack by forcing Dominion to retreat on its demands. A decision is expected in January.

 “All the commissioners were taking notes,” he said. “We are extremely encouraged by their level of engagement.”

 While the ruling would address a critical piece of Virginia’s convoluted interconnection puzzle, it’s not the only one, Smith said. Since 2022, the SCC has been exploring the challenges smaller solar developers face in getting their projects online.

In a nutshell, Dominion has insisted that any solar  projects of at least 250 kilowatts be equipped with a device called a “direct transfer trip” (DTT), which can automatically disconnect systems from the grid in the event of any kind of disruption or emergency on the system. The utility also requires that developers link these larger projects to substations by using an advanced form of cabling called dark fiber optic transmission line, to the tune of between $150,000 and $250,000 per mile.

Another mandatory piece of hardware, a distributed generation relay panel, runs $250,000. Combined, the equipment can add millions to a solar project’s price tag. 

Utilities requiring system upgrades that increase the cost of solar installations, even for smaller residential rooftop projects, is nothing new. Usually, however, the reason for the upgrades is that local power lines don’t have the necessary “hosting capacity” – that is, enough space to receive any extra power the panels might feed into the system (which E/lectrify wrote about here). 

Dominion’s requirements do not appear to be capacity-related. Evidently, they’re to ensure the utility can control solar projects on its distribution system and take them offline in the event of power fluctuations or other disruptions. Further, they shift the cost of such system upgrades onto solar developers and their customers – such as the Fairfax County schools.

Dominion has maintained that its interconnection standards requiring DTT and dark fiber are nonnegotiable because system reliability and customer and employee safety are paramount ─ a mantra repeated multiple times during the SCC hearing.

However, those project-crushing fees helped Smith rally members of the Virginia Distributed Solar Alliance to testify at the hearing, Sept. 30-Oct. 1 in Richmond. Spearheaded by Smith’s company, the alliance includes a mix of solar installers and advocacy organizations such as the Sierra Club of Virginia and Solar United Neighbors of Virginia.

Even though the utility’s cost-prohibitive fees had forced him to cancel some of his company’s projects, Smith noted the irony of Dominion announcing the new fees on the winter solstice three years ago.

“Dominion imposed its dark fiber requirements on darkest day of the year,” he said with a laugh.

One reason the Fairfax County schools pursued rooftop solar at all was because students rallied for it, recalled school board member Karl Frisch in an interview.

 He campaigned for his seat in 2019 as an ally of the students beseeching the district to adopt solar.

“The kids were right,” Frisch said. “The idea of reaching carbon neutrality isn’t possible without alternative energy, and it seemed like a moral imperative.”

He was impressed that the school district and the county cooperated on solar via a joint environmental task force.

Back then, Fairfax County was hailed as an innovator with its proposal to outfit 113 county buildings—including 87 schools—with 45 megawatts of solar, enough to power roughly 4,700 Virginia homes annually.

That was the largest solar contract initiated by a Virginia municipality. Such third-party agreements, referred to as power purchase agreements (PPAs), are an ideal financing tool for school districts and other tax-exempt entities because they require little or no upfront expenses and provide power at a cost less than utility rates. In addition, that third party—the solar developer—can qualify for federal investment tax credits and is responsible for buying, owning and maintaining the solar panels.

The school district’s path to solar power has been significantly slowed by internal personnel changes as well switching its choice of developers several times. Those delays were compounded by a separate 2023 SCC decision that suspended Dominion’s equipment upgrades and seemed to allow daylight for Fairfax to proceed with its original solar plans.

But that halt was a temporary measure, stalling fees and upgrades until the regulators could delve full force into overarching grid connection cases. Ultimately, a staggered timeline and fear of running afoul of Dominion prompted the district to go small. 

Erik Gordon, the school district’s new chief of facilities services, was measured in his responses to questions about complying with the requirements on solar arrays.

Amended plans call for three waves of solar installations on 34 school rooftops over the next two years. To maintain current PPA rates, projects must be completed by the end of 2027, which is when federal tax credits expire.

None of the projects will be larger than 250 kW because of Dominion’s arbitrary size cutoff. The first system, 245.85 kW, went online at Olde Creek Elementary School in the city of Fairfax in late October.

Revising the original plan “is worthwhile because every step advances our energy goals and supports long-term environmental responsibility,” Gordon said. “Each panel represents measurable progress.”

The school district spent about $30 million on electricity annually in both 2023 and 2024, according to figures on the district’s website.

The estimated energy cost savings for the 34 projects total $15.7 million over the expected 25-year life of the arrays.

That’s a far cry—roughly a quarter—of the initial $60 million in energy savings anticipated countywide. Most of those millions would have benefitted the schools because the district had proposed the lion’s share of the solar projects.

Considering that a rookie teacher’s annual salary in 2026 will be roughly $61,747, those savings could have gone to hiring  a heckuva lot of teachers — especially at a time when the school district’s budget was being squeezed.

After cycling through several solar developers, the district awarded all three waves to Charlottesville-based Sun Tribe. From the outset, Sun Tribe partnered with Dominion Energy Solutions LLC to design, engineer, finance and install the systems, a school district spokeswoman said.

(Sun Tribe has since sold its portfolio of commercial projects, including its K-12 school projects, to Madison Energy Infrastructure.)

Dominion Energy Solutions, the solar arm of the utility, is overseeing the projects so they can be completed before the federal tax credits expire, the spokeswoman said.

All along, the school district has emphasized how switching to solar would speed up its goal of carbon neutrality by 2040. The district expects to curb its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 4,200 metric tons annually once all 34 rooftop systems are online.

For years, Dominion has maintained that its standards for commercial solar over 250 kW, including the DTT and dark fiber requirements, are nonnegotiable because its paramount concern for the safety of customers and employees, and the reliability of the grid.

Utility spokespeople adhered to that reasoning during testimony at the recent two-day hearing. For instance, Mamadou Diong, Dominion’s manager of electric distribution grid planning, emphasized that the company’s justification for its DTT criteria is grounded in its longstanding commitment to safety, reliability and responsible management.

He acknowledged that other utilities have adopted alternative practices for connecting solar to their systems but noted that such differences are due to variations in grid architecture, the amount of solar on the system and regulatory contexts.

Diong added that Dominion is evaluating other technologies to provide the least-cost and most effective solutions.

This our-way-or the-highway attitude toward solar has dumbfounded those who have researched options other utilities deploy.

Cliona Robb, a veteran energy attorney who advises Smith’s alliance, said those expensive barriers are how Dominion maintains its solar monopoly.

“The message is that you can get solar, as long as it’s utility solar. Otherwise, you’re out of luck,” Robb said in an interview several years ago. “It’s outrageous to me that a utility can unilaterally adopt a practice that’s not consistent with industry standards.”

In other interviews, Dominion spokesperson Jeremy Slayton has countered that the utility administers regulations laid out in Chapter 314 of the Virginia code governing the interconnection of small electric generators in a “consistent and equitable manner” for all customers that “desire to operate generation in parallel with the company’s distribution grid.”

Aaron Ruby, also a Dominion spokesperson, did not return a request for comment about the hearing and how his utility would respond if regulators issue a decision that favors Smith’s alliance.

Since embarking on this quest, Smith and his allies have tried to convince regulators that existing, far less expensive technologies are capable of meeting Dominion’s stringent safety and reliability standards.

Robb, of Richmond-based Thompson-McMullan, has outlined specific changes the utility could make so solar developers could complete projects larger than 250 kW without bankrupting themselves.

For instance, Robb urged Virginia regulators to adopt a rule eliminating the need for dark fiber for projects under 5 MW. She also advised that expenses for those projects be limited to the cost of inverters and reclosers — commonly used and less pricey electronic devices.

The utility would have to pick up costs related to upgrades to its substations or other pieces of its distribution system. Inverters or cellular communications should be the standard in lieu of dark fiber, she said.

Robb pointed to a case study published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers concluding that DTT with cellular communication provides an efficient and cost-effective approach for utility communications with solar and other clean technologies at the distribution level.

IEEE is the professional body that sets scores of standards, including one that covers inverters and minimum requirements for distributed resources, including solar and storage.

Smith emphasized that the state General Assembly recognized the benefits of distributed energy by passing both the Virginia Clean Economy Act and a shared solar statute in 2020. Smaller solar companies figured it was their chance to shine. The VCEA commits the state to a 100% clean electric power system by 2050 and requires Dominion to hit that target by 2045.

The petition that Smith’s alliance filed with the utility commission back in June of 2023 stated that Dominion’s parameters for connecting commercial solar projects were illegal because the regulators had never approved them. It asked commissioners to rule [KK15] on solar projects between 250 kW and 1 MW.

For Smith, the result was almost as frustrating as Dominion’s requirements themselves. The SCC opted to seek solutions by organizing working groups, which can take several years to settle such complex issues, he emphasized.

“The gears turn slowly when we have a need for speed,” Smith said. “In the meantime, while Rome burns, solar investments will bypass Virginia. Social policy and interconnection barriers are hindering the promise of solar.”

The need for new power has become increasingly urgent due to the dense concentration of data centers in Northern Virginia, which has led Dominion and other utilities to propose constructing new natural gas plants. The SCC recently approved Dominion’s plan to build a 1 GW natural gas peaker plant next to two existing gas plants in Chester, Va., south of Richmond.

Peaker plants provide backup power at times of high demand when other generation may not be available and are one of the most expensive forms of generation.

Delays at the regulatory level irritate Smith because not only can a school’s rooftop solar be incorporated into valuable classroom lessons for students, it is also a mini power plant on already-developed flat space that is otherwise wasted.

“To top it off, Dominion’s interconnection requirements are increasing the tax burden on Virginians by disallowing schools to save on energy costs as electricity prices go up 10 to 15% a year instead of 2 to 3%,” Smith said. “That sticker shock is being felt now.”

That pressure is compounded by the Trump administration’s decision to stymie solar by phasing out federal tax incentives, among other acts.

“The solar industry is extremely resilient and adaptive,” Smith said. “This is not our first rodeo as far as federal policy tunning off and on the spigot. What’s different with this administration is that we’re talking about a systemic disruption of anything to do with strengthening and supporting this country’s clean energy requirements.”

Why persist in the case against Dominion?

Eight years ago, Secure Solar Futures became a certified B Corporation to reflect Smith’s commitment to overcoming social and environmental obstacles.

“We’re not here just to make a profit,” he said. “It boils down to a realization that we’re not just in the solar business. We’re in the solar policy business, too, and you can’t separate the two. This is about our children and grandchildren and the legacy we’re leaving behind.”

Elizabeth McGowan is a longtime energy and environment reporter based in Washington, D.C. She has won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You Never Heard Of” as a staff correspondent for InsideClimate News. Her adventure memoir, Outpedaling ‘The Big C’: My Healing Cycle Across America, was published in 2020. Learn more: https://elizabethmcgowan-author.com/

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