Quarterly Regional Recap — Virginia / PJM Mid-Atlantic (Q2 2026)

The second quarter of 2026 was the quarter Virginia stopped being a county-by-county story and became a statewide one. On April 13, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed the most consequential change to solar and storage siting authority the Commonwealth has seen since the Virginia Clean Economy Act, and it takes effect July 1 — three days before this recap. At the same time, the data-center land-use fight the region has been having for two years hardened into a budget deadlock in Richmond, and PJM's grid math got worse. This recap pulls the quarter's changes from SitePath's change feed, SitePath's regulatory tracker, SitePath's intelligence feed, the May 2026 data snapshot, and the county ordinance record, and every claim below is cited to a source already in the SitePath dataset.

Top ordinance and law changes

1. Virginia HB 711 / SB 347 — statewide solar/BESS preemption (signed Apr 13, effective July 1). This is the quarter's defining change and SitePath's only critical-severity Virginia entry (SitePath's change feed, va-hb711-signed-20260413; SitePath's regulatory tracker, va-hb711-solar-preemption-2025). The law does four things: (1) it prohibits outright bans and blanket exclusions on solar facilities of ≥1 MW in agricultural, commercial, industrial, or institutional zoning — counties that had removed utility-scale solar as an allowable use must now accept and process applications; (2) it creates a Virginia Solar Energy and Energy Storage Siting Advisory Board to review projects >20 MW within seven miles of an interconnection point, with a 90-day window to issue an opinion; (3) it forces a locality to approve or deny within 30 days of that opinion; and (4) it lets developers appeal a denial to the State Corporation Commission within 21 days, with the SCC required to approve within 30 days if capacity and proximity thresholds are met. Sourcing is primary and already in the dataset: Canary Media (canarymedia.com/articles/solar/virginia-blocks-counties-from-banning-solar) and the Virginia Association of Counties capitol-contact summary (vaco.org). Opposition came from county governments and the Virginia Farm Bureau (SitePath's regulatory tracker, va-hb711-solar-preemption-2025).

Note the design: this is partial preemption. A county can still deny a specific project; it can no longer zone the entire category out. SitePath classifies it as a law that "bans blanket exclusions [but] preserves case-by-case denial."

2. Virginia HB 891 / SB 443 — BESS by-right on approved solar parcels (signed Apr 13, effective July 1). A companion measure that runs through nearly every Virginia county's BESS ordinance record: battery storage is now by-right on parcels that already carry an approved utility-scale solar facility (SitePath's ordinance records, BESS rows for Montgomery 51121, Bedford 51019, Southampton 51175, and dozens more). Combined with HB 711, the July 1 effective date reshapes both the solar and the storage siting map on the same day.

3. The counties whose bans and caps are now on a collision course with state law. SitePath's data names Greensville, Patrick, Franklin, and Page as the counties with blanket solar bans that "must now accept applications effective July 1, 2026" (SitePath's regulatory tracker, va-hb711-solar-preemption-2025, impactedCounties). Greensville is the sharpest case — its June 2024 Board vote removed utility-scale solar from the zoning ordinance entirely and stopped accepting applications (SitePath's ordinance records, Greensville 51081 solar row). Two other Southside restrictions were on the books entering the quarter and now sit in tension with the new statute: Mecklenburg County voted unanimously on April 14, 2025 to remove utility-scale solar as a permitted use (revised Article 20), with a 2,325-acre county cap and the 997-acre Finneywood Solar project (Dominion) already denied 6-2 in October 2024; and Pittsylvania County carries a 2% total-acreage cap plus a 5-mile spacing rule that Columbia Law's Sabin Center flagged as "exceptionally burdensome" (SitePath's ordinance records, Mecklenburg 51117 and Pittsylvania 51143 solar rows; source: Cardinal News Jan 30 2024, MAREC Action).

4. Standing caps and setback tightening from late 2024 remain in force. For context on the baseline the new law lands on: Halifax amended its ordinance in Oct/Nov 2024 to raise setbacks to ≥300 ft from rights-of-way and property lines and widen buffers; Henry adopted a 2,445-acre county cap; Brunswick an 8,500-acre cap (SitePath's ordinance records, solar rows 51083, 51089, 51025; source: Cardinal News Jan 30 2024, MAREC Action). None of these are ≥1 MW blanket exclusions, so whether HB 711 reaches acreage caps and spacing rules — as opposed to outright category bans — is the open legal question of the next quarter (see "Development risk themes").

5. Data-center zoning tightening (Loudoun). Not new this quarter but the governing template for the region: Loudoun's Phase 1 overhaul (ZOAM-2024-0001, adopted March 18, 2025, 7-2 vote) eliminated by-right data centers and now requires a Special Exception (SPEX) with Planning Commission hearing and Board approval for all new data centers in IP/GI/MR-HI zones. Context from the record: 198 data centers and ~46M sq ft already exist in the county, generating 38-50% of the general fund (SitePath's ordinance records, Loudoun 51107 data-center row).

Counties to watch

• Greensville (51081) — the test case. A blanket removal-from-use meets a statute that makes blanket removals illegal on July 1. Watch whether the county rescinds the removal, litigates, or sits still and forces the first SCC appeal. (SitePath's ordinance records 51081; SitePath's regulatory tracker va-hb711-solar-preemption-2025.)
• Mecklenburg (51117) and Pittsylvania (51143) — the acreage-cap and spacing-rule frontier. Both restrict rather than outright ban, so they are the counties that will define whether HB 711 reaches "reasonable operational limitations" or stops at category bans. (SitePath's ordinance records 51117, 51143.)
• Bedford (51019) — grade D, risk 61.5, sentiment "Strongly Opposed" and trajectory "Worsening"; its ordinance prohibits utility-scale solar outright, another blanket exclusion now exposed to the new law (SitePath's own records, 51019; SitePath's ordinance records 51019).
• Northumberland (51133) — grade D, risk 60.8, with a documented 100% denial rate (all 5 proposals rejected, per Cardinal News); case-by-case denial survives HB 711, so this is where the "preserved denial" seam gets stress-tested (SitePath's own records, 51133).
• Loudoun (51107) and Prince William (51153) — the data-center corridor. Both are philosophically pro-solar D-majority boards with essentially no utility-scale solar market left, because the Digital Gateway corridor and suburban build-out have consumed the large parcels; land-use conflict is explicitly documented in Prince William's 2023–2024 comp-plan amendments (SitePath's own records, 51107, 51153).
• Warren (51187), Culpeper (51047), Page (51139) — data-center pressure counties operating under full local control while Richmond's tax-exemption fight stays unresolved (SitePath's ordinance records data-center rows).

Development risk themes

Preemption vs. local control, unresolved on the deadline. The single largest risk this quarter is timing: HB 711 / SB 443 take effect July 1, but the model-ordinance mechanics, the Advisory Board's composition, and the SCC appeal process are all untested. Counties that removed solar as a use (Greensville, Patrick, Franklin, Page) have to reconcile their ordinances with the statute essentially overnight (SitePath's regulatory tracker, va-hb711-solar-preemption-2025). The comparable precedent is Illinois PA 102-1123 (Jan 2023), where an appellate decision on Aug 1, 2025 was needed to draw the line between prohibited "exclusionary zoning" and permitted "reasonable operational limitations" (SitePath's regulatory tracker, il-pa-102-1123-compliance). Virginia is likely to need the same clarification, and the acreage-cap counties are where it will originate.

Data-center land-use conflict is now a fiscal fight. Virginia's special session recessed on April 23, 2026 without a budget deal, deadlocked over the state's ~$1.9B/year data-center sales-tax exemption — the Senate wants it eliminated starting January 2027, while Governor Spanberger and the House prefer keeping it with environmental conditions (SitePath's ordinance records, data-center rows, multiple counties). A separate proposal, HB 1515, would bar localities from granting final data-center approvals until grid-interconnection conditions are met — status unclear (same source). The unresolved exemption is a direct input to every data-center pro forma in the region.

BESS fire-safety scrutiny is rising even as HB 891 makes storage by-right. The quarter's storage liberalization arrives against a backdrop of high-profile incidents in the national record: the Vistra Moss Landing fire (Monterey County, CA, Jan 2025), the Salt River Project fire (AZ, Oct 2025), and the Convergent Energy fire in Warwick, NY (Orange County, Dec 19, 2025) where hydrogen cyanide was detected (SitePath's regulatory tracker, bess_incidents; SitePath's change feed, NY Orange bess-incident). The NFPA 855 2026 Edition now mandates large-scale UL 9540A fire testing (SitePath's change feed, standard-update 2025-10-01). Expect Virginia localities to fold fire-code conditions into the case-by-case denials the new law still permits.

Federal ITC cliff compresses the pipeline. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act set July 4, 2026 as the last construction-start date for the commercial/utility solar ITC, with a final placed-in-service deadline of Dec 31, 2027 (SitePath's regulatory tracker, upcoming_milestones, OBBBA). This recap is dated the day of that cliff — developers racing to break ground are doing so into a Virginia permitting system that changes three days earlier.

Notable local sentiment trends

The May snapshot shows Virginia sentiment splitting cleanly along two axes — board partisanship and land availability (SitePath's own records, sentiment / sentiment_basis fields):

• Revenue-focused acceptance in Southside/rural counties with land. Southampton ("Supportive/ revenue-focused"), Charlotte ("Positive; revenue support"), and Montgomery ("Supportive/progressive") frame solar through revenue-share and siting agreements. These are the counties HB 711 was arguably written for — willing hosts whose neighbors had been zoning the category out.
• Philosophically supportive, but no market, in the NoVa data-center belt. Loudoun, Prince William, Fairfax, and Arlington all read "Supportive in principle / no meaningful market" — D-majority boards with zero utility-scale land left. Sentiment here is decoupled from development because the land-use contest was already won by data centers.
• Hardened opposition in a shrinking set of rural boards. Bedford ("Strongly Opposed," worsening) and Northumberland (100% denial rate) are the visible edge of the resistance HB 711 targets. Most other R-majority rural boards read "Cautious/neutral" rather than hostile — market disinterest and terrain (e.g., Bland, Washington, APCo mountain territory) more than active opposition.

The macro backdrop: as of 2025, 459 municipalities and counties across 44 states had adopted renewable-siting restrictions, with ~500 proposed solar projects actively contested nationwide (SitePath's intelligence feed, siting_opposition_trends; source: Sabin Center, Columbia Law School 2025). Virginia's preemption law is one state's answer to that wave.

Grid / interconnection themes

FERC forced PJM to write co-location rules — because the auction came up short. On December 18, 2025, FERC found PJM's existing tariff "unjust and unreasonable" and directed the RTO to establish transparent rules for large loads (primarily AI data centers) co-located with generation. New generators may seek interconnection based on net injections rather than full nameplate, three new transmission services are to be created, and behind-the-meter rules clarified. The trigger: PJM's December 2025 capacity auction closed 6,600 MW short of its reserve margin (SitePath's intelligence feed / SitePath's regulatory tracker, federal, FERC December 2025 order). For the Mid-Atlantic, this is the grid-side counterpart to the data-center zoning fight — the same load growth showing up as a reliability gap.

The queue remains the binding constraint. The national interconnection backlog stands at roughly 2,600 GW with a ~4-year average wait, against >$100B in announced clean-energy investment (SitePath's regulatory tracker, market_trends). HB 711's seven-mile-from-interconnection threshold for Advisory Board review is, in effect, an admission that proximity to a viable interconnection point is now the scarcest input in Virginia siting.

Legislative link between grid and permitting. HB 1515's proposal to withhold data-center approvals until interconnection conditions are met (SitePath's ordinance records, data-center rows) would hard-wire the queue into the local approval process — worth tracking as the mechanism the region may adopt to manage load.

Recommended next areas for research

1. Model-ordinance adoption tracking (highest priority). HB 711 requires localities to reconcile ordinances by the July 1 effective date. Build a per-county compliance tracker: who has repealed a ban, who has amended, who is standing pat. Start with Greensville, Patrick, Franklin, Page, plus the cap counties (Mecklenburg, Pittsylvania). (Source basis: SitePath's regulatory tracker va-hb711-solar-preemption-2025.)
2. First Advisory Board opinions and first SCC appeal. The Board's composition, its first >20 MW review, and any first developer appeal to the SCC will set the operative precedent. No records yet exist in the dataset — this is a coverage gap to fill in Q3.
3. Acreage-cap vs. blanket-ban legal line. Track whether HB 711 is read to reach Pittsylvania's 2% cap / 5-mile spacing and Mecklenburg's 2,325-acre cap, mirroring the Illinois PA 102-1123 appellate distinction. Pull the actual statute text (Va. Code § 15.2-2288.7) into the record.
4. Data-center sales-tax exemption resolution. Monitor the reconvened Virginia budget process on the $1.9B/year exemption and HB 1515's status — both materially change data-center economics and the solar-vs-data-center land contest.
5. Greensville pipeline thaw. Confirm whether the ~379 MW of previously frozen Greensville pipeline (cited in SitePath's June monthly brief, State Preemption Reaches the Mid-Atlantic: How Virginia's HB 711 Rewrites the County Solar Map) actually re-enters permitting after July 1.
6. PJM co-location tariff filings. Track PJM's compliance filing in response to the December 2025 FERC order and any Mid-Atlantic co-located solar-plus-storage-plus-load projects it enables.