Correction: David Porter, vice president of electrification and sustainable energy strategy at EPRI, spoke generally about the challenges and opportunities of constructing data centers and coordinating with utilities. He did not speak specifically about the Southwest Virginia project.

Will Payne and Will Clear are all too aware of the skeptics.

But those doubters only fuel the duo’s vision for Southwest Virginia. The former Virginia state energy office bureaucrats turned private-sector consultants have an ambitious plan to repurpose land and backfill local taxes in communities left behind by the coal industry’s decline, and also pioneer new models for powering data centers with local clean energy.

Data Center Ridge is one piece of a nonprofit venture — Energy DELTA Lab — designed to transform 65,000 mostly contiguous acres of minelands where coal was king for decades into test sites that advance energy innovation. The project has the backing of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who announced an agreement last November establishing a framework for developing the land. 

“If I had a dollar for every time somebody asked why we’re wasting our time on this, I wouldn’t have to work,” Clear, a former chief deputy director with the state Department of Energy. “This isn’t a pipedream. What people need to understand is how long a project like this takes.” 

The first phase involves persuading tech companies to build solar-powered data centers on up to 2,000 acres of the now-defunct Bullitt Mine in Wise County. The facilities would be able to tap into underground mine water to help cool their servers. Eventually, they say, other energy sources such as wind turbines, pumped hydro storage, or small nuclear reactors could be added across the larger property.

“This is a big idea and we need someone who can share that vision,” said Payne, managing partner of Coalfield Strategies LLC. “We need developers who believe in ramped-up clean energy.” 

Glenn Davis, director of the Virginia Department of Energy, said a couple of key factors are driving the state’s interest in the lab. Many data center companies are exclusively seeking sites where they can access 100% clean energy, and new clean power generation could cushion the grid impact from the state’s booming data center sector.

“Southwest Virginia was the energy capital of the East Coast and I believe it will be again,” Davis said in an interview. “There’s a power void that needs to be filled and solar is part of that.” 

Dovetails with Youngkin energy plan

DELTA, shorthand for Discovery, Education, Learning & Technology Accelerator Lab, is just one enterprise Davis is tracking as he coordinates Youngkin’s all-of-the-above Energy Plan. 

Last fall, Youngkin said the intent is to attract private and public dollars to flesh out a portfolio that also draws wind, hydrogen, large-scale batteries, pumped-storage hydropower and eventually, perhaps, small modular nuclear reactors when and if that nascent technology matures. Any carbon-cutting realized by lab energy projects wouldn’t count toward Virginia’s landmark Clean Economy Act because the faraway area is served by a Lexington-based power company, Kentucky Utilities. The VCEA requires only the state’s largest investor-owned generators — Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power — to achieve a carbon-free grid by 2045 and 2050, respectively. 

That doesn’t bother Youngkin, Davis said.

“What’s driving the governor’s interest is jobs, businesses and an improved quality of life,” said Davis, appointed as an agency head in April 2023. “We’re excited because the opportunity for growth there is larger than any other in the state.” 

Dallas-based Energy Transfer owns the acreage, roughly 101 square miles. The lab is coordinating site development with Wise County officials and the landowner. Some of the acreage is still being mined for metallurgical coal, the type used for steelmaking and other industries. However, much of the property, including inactive Bullitt Mine, is being reclaimed. 

On paper, the dozen or so projects on the drawing board, including Data Center Ridge, could generate 1,600-plus jobs, add 1 GW of new power and induce $8.25 billion in private investments, Payne said. First, however, they have to move beyond the conversation stage. 

Payne and Clear, DELTA’s chief advisers, are counting on their matchmaking skills to revive a region often depicted as down on its heels. 

Clear grew up in Smyth County, east of Wise County. Payne recently moved to Washington County on the Virginia-Tennessee border. The Richmond native left a position as chief deputy at the state energy department in 2019 to direct InvestSWVA, an incubator invented to diversify the region’s economy and curb carbon emissions. Appalachian Grains was one of their previous energy-related joint ventures.

Tax revenues from data centers are the boost local governments need to fill the coal gap, they say. 

“Plain and simple, public safety, education, health care, municipal services and other core government sources are at risk of falling off a cliff if we do nothing,” said Clear. “We’re trying to solve this crisis.” 

Is SW Virginia the next ‘tertiary market’? 

Josh Levi, president of the Loudoun County-based Data Center Coalition, said Southwest Virginia shouldn’t be dismissed as too inaccessible or mountainous for data center development. 

Recently, the burgeoning industry began expanding into off-the-beaten path “tertiary markets,” he said. For instance, he pointed to a deal Amazon Web Service announced this year to spend $10 billion on two data center complexes in Mississippi. 

It was only a few years ago that the industry reached into secondary markets such as Columbus, Ohio, and San Antonio, Texas, after initially concentrating its investments primarily in Silicon Valley, New York-New Jersey, Dallas, Chicago, Northern Virginia, Atlanta and Phoenix. 

In Virginia alone, there’s a southward shift as more data centers pop up around Fredericksburg and Richmond. 

“What they’re doing is credible,” Levi said about Payne and Clear. “My understanding is that they have seen levels of interest from data center developers. Whether the opportunities they’re leveraging lines up with the business needs of data centers remains an open question.”   

For instance, he said, Southwest Virginia might be the right fit for backing up federal data but less so for applications such as live-streaming video or trading stocks. 

Loudoun County and surrounding Northern Virginia are home to almost 300 data centers, the biggest concentration of such campuses in the world. It’s the crossroads for roughly 70% of global internet traffic. 

Prolific construction of the mega-buildings that make cloud computing possible — combined with the accompanying need for transmission lines for electricity and water for cooling — have caused an uproar among community activists alarmed about their impact on local infrastructure and the environment.

Such large-scale growth prompted a tongue-in-cheek comment from Democratic state Sen. Danica Roem about exporting data centers from Prince William, the county she represents, to Tazewell County, just east of the proposed Data Center Ridge. 

In an interview with the Energy News Network, Roem said she would only support siting data centers in Southwest Virginia if the projects have widespread community buy-in, are powered with renewable energy and are built on reclaimed coal mines that don’t require clearcutting of forests, which serve as carbon dioxide sinks. Utility customers shouldn’t be saddled with paying for the expensive buildout of transmission infrastructure, she added. 

“I don’t want to simply shift the problems we’re having here to Southwest Virginia and create problems for the residents there,” Roem said. “If they’re building data centers there, are they going to stop digging in my district?”

Roem has joined other legislators introducing bills aimed at reining in data center growth and controlling the resources the buildings require. For instance, compared to a typical office building, the U.S. Energy Department estimates one data center needs 50 times more electricity. 

‘A lot of potential hurdles’ 

David Porter, vice president of electrification and sustainable energy strategy for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Electric Power Research Institute, said there are numerous challenges and opportunities when it comes to coordinating data centers’ power needs with utilities.

“These data centers could be a really neat idea if they can work around a lot of potential hurdles,” Porter said. High on his checklist of potential limiting factors are access to a reliable electric grid connection, battery storage to fill gaps and “major league” fiber optic cable for communications.

He emphasized that even a modest number of data centers can’t rely on renewable energy 24/7. Backup power, typically provided by diesel-powered generators, is needed to keep the centers operating when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

As well, he said, even larger data centers in the gigawatt range generate far fewer jobs than a manufacturing center.

Payne and Clear said they are far from naïve about the difficulty of solving grid and broadband issues, which they know will take years, not months, to remedy, and that the jobs will be impactful in a region where the average annual income is $42,000.

“In Southwest Virginia, we’ve seen plenty of manufacturers pick up and leave, and that wouldn’t be the case with wind turbines and data centers.”

Their models show that one 36 MW data center, considered to be a mid-size project, would generate about 50 jobs paying $134,300 a year. In an ideal scenario, the size of Data Center Ridge would eventually expand more than 25-fold to 1,000 MW.

DELTA Lab recently collaborated with a local industrial facilities authority to offer a financial incentive for data center developers, Clear noted. It translates to Wise, Lee, Scott and Dickenson counties and the city of Norton offering a tax rate on data center equipment of 24 cents per $100 of assessed value. By far, it’s the lowest such rate in the state.

“The more persuasive argument for data centers here is about sustainability for local governments and their citizens,” Clear said. “This creates a new trajectory for tax collections for the next 50 years.”

Water source easy, electricity not so much 

The sites they’re eyeing for data centers are atop an estimated 6 billion to 10 billion gallons of underground 55-degree mine water, which offers a less-costly method for cooling the hot air generated by hundreds of servers. 

It’s not an aquifer. Over the years, rainwater has been filtered by the limestone and sandstone as it trickled through fissures and cracks and landed in cavities created as coal deposits were removed. The pools of water are as deep as 1,000 feet below the surface. 

Four years before ushering in DELTA Lab, Payne and Clear had procured a state grant to study the water supply. Since then, they have been collaborating with engineers to devise a closed-loop water system that could chill the centers and eventually pump the water back underground to be reused after the Earth removes the heat it absorbed. 

Drilling of test wells by a geotechnical company is scheduled to begin this fall. That exploration is funded by the federal government and managed by the U.S. Department of Energy. 

In the meantime, a looming challenge is securing the flow of electricity to and from Data Center Ridge. Even if on-site solar arrays with backup battery storage are the initial power source, the project needs to have sufficient substations, transmission lines and other infrastructure to tie into the grid. That way, excess electricity can be shipped out and “imported” electrons can fill any deficits. 

Payne and Clear are talking with Kentucky Utilities — which does business in Wise and four other Virginia counties as Old Dominion Power — about upgrading and adding infrastructure. That analysis is part of a larger effort spearheaded by county officials to meet long-term energy demand in Southwest Virginia. 

One plus, Clear said, is that siting the buildout of substations and transmission lines will be less difficult on property with one landowner. However, he also knows investor-owned utilities often aren’t keen on asking ratepayers to fund infrastructure built to serve one distant customer.

Davis said his agency would likely pursue federal Energy Department money to construct transmission infrastructure. 

Data Center Ridge has the potential to boost the utility’s renewable energy portfolio, which is 1% of a generation energy mix that is heavy on coal, 84%, and natural gas, 15%. 

Although every component of their blueprint presents a separate set of obstacles, the entrepreneurs say outsiders’ perception of Appalachia is the chief hindrance. 

“Even after making our case since 2019, dispelling myths about the region is our first challenge in getting developers down here,” Payne said. “They think everybody is on meth and lives in shanties.” 

They persist to prove their doubters wrong. 

“Everything is teed up here to be executed,” Clear said. “It’s getting that first domino to drop that’s really important.” 

Promoters of clean-energy data centers in Virginia coal country unfazed by doubters is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

By gradually nudging aside its diesel buses, Charlottesville’s transit agency is punching above its weight.

The city of 45,000 at the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains is matching the likes of larger counterparts in New York, Chicago and San Diego with a carbon-curbing proposal to convert to a zero-emission public transit fleet by 2040. By then, its routes will be served by electric buses.

Granted, some environmental advocacy organizations urged a speedier transition and are disappointed the city won’t retire its last diesel bus until 2039.

However, groups aligned with the Community Climate Collaborative (C3) — which emphasizes social justice in its work to reduce emissions — are relieved the city was willing to address route and ridership issues in addition to a commitment to wean itself off diesel and avoid compressed natural gas as a power source altogether.

“I think this is a victory,” said Caetano de Campos Lopes, C3’s director of climate policy. “We are very pleased that the city’s approach was so thorough and holistic.”

As it stands now, Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) plans to double the size of its fleet from 38 to 76 by 2034. That peak fleet will be a blend of diesel and electric buses.

CAT is on track to roll out a pair of  pilot programs to add at least two battery electric buses and then at least two hydrogen-electric fuel cell models by 2029. The transit agency will stop ordering diesel buses in 2027, meaning the last ones will come into service by 2028 or 2029. 

While CAT is owned and operated by the city, the University of Virginia and Albemarle County contribute a small amount of its non-capital budget.

De Campos Lopes was reassured in late February when the Charlottesville City Council voiced unanimous support for advancing zero-emission fuel choices, because compressed natural gas was still under consideration the previous year. At its June 17 meeting, the council is scheduled to take a final vote on CAT’s Transit Strategic Plan.

C3 had collaborated with several dozen private companies and environmental, social justice and faith groups to pressure the council to adopt a measure in favor of zero-emission buses, particularly battery electric. It submitted a petition with 640-plus signatures last autumn.

Ben Chambers started his position as the city’s transportation planning manager in November 2022, when the community was in the thick of a back-and-forth exercise about its fleet makeup. The University of Virginia graduate is no stranger to the region or its routes, as he drove a University Transit Service bus while earning a religious studies undergraduate degree in 2006.

Over the last several years, he said, his most difficult task had been explaining to the public that CAT can’t turn on a dime to purchase zero-emission buses and upgrade their accompanying charging and fueling infrastructure.

He praised the council for conducting its deliberations openly so the public could better understand the process.

“For a long time, the constant refrain in the community has been ‘Get cleaner buses,’” Chambers said. “We’ve come to a solution that may not please everybody, but at least people understand how it’s going to work. We’re in a much better place now.”

Don’t let money overshadow emissions

C3, which released a transit equity and climate report in 2021, prodded the city to think beyond financial considerations when it found out that same year that CAT was on the verge of studying how to fuel its future buses.

The nonprofit and its allies feared the city would lean toward a known entity, compressed natural gas, and shy away from less time-tested technologies such as battery electric and hydrogen fuel cells.

That choice, de Campos Lopes said, wouldn’t align with the city’s ambitious target set in 2019 to curb greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. The transportation sector is a leading source, with an estimated 30% of total emissions.

Indeed, a recent analysis for CAT by the Northern Virginia-based Kimley-Horn engineering firm revealed that running CNG buses would amount to only a slight drop in emissions when compared to diesel.

In contrast, that same Kimley-Horn report stated that switching to battery electric buses or fuel cell buses powered with green hydrogen would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 99.4% and 99%, respectively, compared to the baseline diesel fleet.

Both technologies come close to achieving carbon neutrality, assuming the Virginia Clean Economy Act is heeded. Dominion Energy is supposed to achieve a carbon-free electric grid by 2045, with Appalachian Power following suit by 2050.

Both types of buses use batteries to power their electric motors. Fuel cell models use hydrogen to charge a battery, while the other uses electricity from the grid.

Initially, CAT had eyed compressed natural gas as one option because it’s cleaner than diesel and the gas buses didn’t cost that much more, Chambers said. Plus, both Richmond and Williamsburg had demonstrated success with gas buses, which qualified for funding under the federal government’s low- and no-emissions grant program.

“That CNG option caused a lot of mistrust,” he continued. “People thought CAT was trying to get around their request for clean energy buses. We dropped CNG mostly because of the feedback we got from the environmental community.”

In addition, some green groups said the transit agency was acting in bad faith by keeping diesel as part of its fuel mix. 

The timing for looking beyond all fossil fuels was right, Chambers said, when usage data about electric buses was becoming available from other transit agencies and funding opportunities became abundant.

“We could finally have that conversation about electric buses, but we weren’t just responding to what the mob wants us to do,” he said. “We want to balance the hue and cry for alternative fuel with the need for reliable bus service.”

The transit agency is in the midst of devising a zero emission transition plan to submit to the Federal Transit Administration this fall, Chambers said. The document includes details such as a turnover timeline and specifics about bus storage and storage infrastructure.

On the pilot program front, the city is set to order as many as five battery electric buses this summer — each one roughly twice the cost of a $500,000 diesel model — that are scheduled to join the fleet in 2027. CAT will wrestle with details such as driving range, maintenance requirements, and whether it makes sense to install on-site solar to charge the buses.

“I have serious concerns about longer routes and the impact of terrain because we’re quite a hilly town,” he said. “We’re talking about big heavy machines and the details can get technical.”

Bringing up to five hydrogen-powered buses on board by 2029 — at between $1.2 million and $1.3 million each — will be trickier. Most pressing is finding a nearby source of hydrogen fuel that doesn’t contribute to emissions of heat-trapping gases.

“We’re investigating the idea of on-site generation,” Chambers said. “But if we need to truck it in, where would it come from?”

CAT won’t necessarily choose one technology over the other as it replaces its diesel models, he said, adding that having both choices available provides an added benefit of resiliency.

Money for the pilot programs is a mix of federal, state and local dollars, with the bulk of it from the federal government. The exact funding formula is still in the works, he said. 

“Lucky for us, we won’t be the first out of the blocks,” Chambers said about gaining insights from transit agencies “on the bleeding edge to learn about the headaches they had to deal with.”

For instance, neighboring Blacksburg has put battery electric buses on the road, and leaders in Oakland, California; the Champaign-Urbana region of Illinois; and Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, D.C.; have experience with hydrogen fuel cell buses.

He admitted that Charlottesville was a bit leery about delving into alternative technologies because of continued hassles with the 10 hybrid diesel buses it purchased about 15 years ago. Some of those models are still in the fleet. Parts of the hybrid drivetrain failed regularly and replacement parts were often on back order. As well, CAT had problems fully charging battery packs that didn’t last as long as promised.

“CAT couldn’t keep them on routes,” he said. “We didn’t want to end up with that same scenario.”

Getting everybody aboard the bus

Susan Kruse, C3’s executive director, said she recognized that some groups focused solely on climate issues were frustrated by the city’s plans to boost greenhouse gas emissions in the short term by not pivoting away from diesel immediately.

Her group tried to play the role of mediator because “it was best to take the time to get everyone literally and figuratively aboard the bus,” she said. 

“Sure, we would rather see buses move to zero emissions faster. But this is a great example of how moving toward a carbon-neutral community is difficult. This issue is complicated and we have to take the time to get it right.”

Generally, diesel buses cycle out of use after 12 years of service or accumulating 500,000 miles on the odometer.

It’s vital that CAT’s strategic plan calls for addressing shortcomings that frustrated riders, Kruse said. CAT will be doubling the amount of service, adding routes on nights and weekends, and limiting wait times between buses to 30 minutes.

She and her colleagues are especially pleased by the local environmental impact of battery electric and fuel cell buses powered by green or “gray” hydrogen produced using natural gas. A transition would improve air quality and reduce noise levels, according to the Kimley-Horn report.

For instance, the changeover would eliminate emissions of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and volatile organic compounds, all gases that are harmful to humans. For example, nitrogen oxides can irritate airways, aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases, and lead to emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

As well, cleaner buses would reduce the tiniest bits of particulate matter by 25% when compared to diesel. The microscopic particles endanger human health because they can deeply embed in lungs and also enter the bloodstream. Regardless of bus technology, particulate matter is still produced by wear and tear on a vehicle’s brake pads and tires. 

C3 advocates and Chambers agree that Charlottesville’s achievements can be a model for smaller municipalities shifting to carbon-free buses. After all, the timeline for its proposed transition is ahead of Denver and Washington, D.C.

Setting an example doesn’t just apply to public transit, Chambers said, emphasizing that other communities view the university city as a test bed for plucky endeavors.

“In Charlottesville, we tend to think a bit bigger than our britches when it comes to policy decisions,” he said. “We do new bold things because we like to see if we can get it done.”

Charlottesville, Virginia, shows how small cities can take a lead on zero-emissions public transit is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

When the nonprofit Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) began tracking where financial incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act were spurring clean energy manufacturing growth and jobs nationwide, Zach Amittay figured Virginia would snag the top slot in the Southeast.

So he was startled that the state has consistently lagged behind South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia since E2 began its research after the IRA became law in August 2022.

“Overall, Virginia pales in comparison to its neighbors, especially those farther South,” said Amittay, Southeast advocate for E2. “And that’s kind of an irony considering how Virginia’s framework for clean energy policies is driving demand for solar, electric vehicles, battery storage and offshore wind.”

Through April, companies have announced at least 305 major clean energy projects in 40 states and Puerto Rico, according to data E2 has gathered. Those projects are tied to 105,400-plus jobs and more than $123 billion in capital investments.

Of those 305 projects, just four — two connected to offshore wind, one to hydrogen and one to modernizing the electrical grid — have Virginia connections. 

Meanwhile, Georgia has lured 27 projects, South Carolina, 24, and North Carolina, 19. 

“North and South Carolina and Georgia are doing everything in their power to attract companies,” Amittay said. “They’re launching a full-court press by recruiting, offering state incentives and reducing tax liabilities. It shows they recognize this is the future of the economy and they want to be a part of that.”

E2, a national, nonpartisan group of investors, business leaders and professionals, launched its research project to bring more clarity to the IRA allocation process.

“For the average layperson, it’s inscrutable,” Amittay said. “We figured we could dedicate staff time to aggregating information and making it more digestible.”

Virginia has its share of success stories but needs to double down on efforts to entice more manufacturers that are part of the renewable energy supply chain, he noted. Deploying solar panels and wind turbines is only half of the clean energy equation.

“When it comes to attracting investments, the state is missing out by doing the opposite and, it seems, pushing them away.”

Christian Martinez, spokesman for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, countered that take.

He pointed to the administration’s 2022 all-of-the-above Energy Plan as underscoring Virginia’s commitment to being a premier business location while also recognizing energy as a crucial productivity driver.

Without citing specifics, Martinez noted that Youngkin “looks forward to sharing details on several economic development opportunities … when they are ready.”

Rejecting EV battery plant set wrong tone

While state leaders can’t control company whims, Amittay and other clean energy advocates do directly blame Youngkin for nixing a proposal by Ford Motor Co. in late 2022 to build a plant to manufacture electric vehicle batteries on an industrial site in Pittsylvania County on the North Carolina border.

The automaker’s decision to partner with a Chinese company posed too high of a security risk, Youngkin said at the time.

“Virginians should be wary of Chinese communist intrusion into Virginia’s economy,” he said at his January 2023 State of the Commonwealth address, directing legislators to “send me a bill to prohibit dangerous foreign entities tied to the CCP from purchasing Virginia’s farmland.”

Youngkin’s concerns about China’s influence in this country could have been navigated so Virginia’s opportunity for the battery facility didn’t go up in smoke, Amittay said.

“At the time, he was trying to establish a national brand because he had bigger political ambitions,” he said about Youngkin’s presidential aspirations.

In February 2023, Ford announced that the battery plant would be built in Marshall, Michigan.

That loss not only hurt Virginia, Amittay said, but also cued companies that the state might be wary of rolling out the welcome mat to clean energy innovation.

Martinez said Youngkin’s concerns “that the Chinese Communist Party aims to dominate the world at the expense of the United States” were validated when Ford said last November it was scaling back its Michigan plans.

However, Ford explained it was curbing production capacity and employment expectations in Marshall — from 2,500 jobs 1,700 jobs — because of rising labor costs and consumers’ hesitancy to shift to electric vehicles.

IRA a magnet for hydrogen, wind, grid upgrade 

At its core, the Inflation Reduction Act is a massive package that dedicates $369 billion over 10 years to clean energy innovation via tax credits, rebates and other incentives. Many of its programs are designed to boost domestic manufacturing jobs as the country transitions away from fossil fuels.

The latter is a signal to stateside and international businesses, Amittay said, that the United States is serious about tamping down the emissions of heat-trapping gases that are causing climate change.

Thus far, the pull of the IRA’s promise has convinced four companies, Hitachi Energy, Fugro, Lyon Shipyard and Topsoe, to either expand or put down roots in Virginia, according to E2’s database.

Topsoe, a Danish company that focuses on emissions reduction technology, is the latest entrant.

In mid-April, it released plans to spend $400 million on a factory in Chesterfield County, south of Richmond, to manufacture specialized solid oxide electrolyzer cells essential for producing green hydrogen. It would employ 150.

While Topsoe has started the permitting and design process, company spokesman Gabriel Martinez said no timeline is set yet.

“The final investment decision will be dependent on market demand and regulatory developments,” he said, adding that the green hydrogen would be produced by Topsoe’s customers, not on-site in Virginia.

If built, Topsoe’s largest U.S. investment would be eligible for up to $136 million in IRA incentives, Gabriel Martinez said.

Another European company, Fugro, is in the midst of bumping up the workforce at its Americas Center of Expertise for Offshore Wind in Norfolk. The Dutch geo-data business first landed in Virginia in 2007 when it was hired to help expand nearby Portsmouth’s Craney Island Marine Terminal operated by the state Port Authority.

A few years later, Fugro began pivoting to offshore wind as possibilities for the industry took shape in coastal Virginia and beyond, said Peter Tattersfield, who directs wind business development in the Americas.

Dominion Energy is on the verge of beginning offshore construction on its 176-turbine wind farm 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. At peak capacity, it will generate 2.6 gigawatts of power.

Fugro deploys specialized equipment such as buoys, sensors and robots to capture information about water currents, wind speeds, wave heights and soil types to create detailed maps of the ocean floor and the surrounding maritime environment. Scientists also study sea mammal and fish habitat.

“Wind developers need to know what they’re building their turbines on and where they should be installing cables,” Tattersfield said. “Basically, we build an earth model so they can feel confident about their projects.”

Fugro will steadily add professional jobs to keep pace with the Biden administration’s goal of achieving 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, he said. The company isn’t in line to receive IRA money directly. Instead, business will grow as more and more wind developers take advantage of generous IRA incentives.

“Our industry is still in its infancy, but we’re strategically positioned in Virginia,” Tattersfield said. “A wind developer is like a general contractor who has all the incentives to get the house built. If he’s successful, then all the subcontractors are pulled along toward success too.”

Relatedly, Norfolk-based Lyon Shipyard announced last fall that it would be spending $8.5 million to increase its capacity so it can provide a range of services for the commercial ships and vessels that attend to offshore wind farms. The ship repair company, active along the Elizabeth River since 1928, expects to add 134 jobs.

Meanwhile, Hitachi Energy is investing $37 million to add 26,000 square feet of production space to its power transformer building in Halifax County to support the manufacture of bigger transformers specifically designed for utility and renewable energy markets.

Transformers are a crucial piece of grid resiliency because they stabilize voltage to ensure power flows efficiently and reliably.

Steve McKinney, the head of Hitachi’s transformer business in North America, said he expects the addition to the existing 607,000 square foot plant in South Boston to be online by the end of 2025. Hitachi will hire 165 employees to its current on-site workforce of 450.

McKinney said there’s a “good possibility” Hitachi would tap into IRA incentives to offset equipment costs, but didn’t yet know a dollar figure.

The Virginia investment is just a tiny slice of the $1.5 billion Hitachi is pouring into its transformer capacity globally as demand for electricity explodes because of the growth of everything from data centers to electric vehicles.

“A lot of the grid network was built decades ago, and it’s time to upgrade,” he said. “Who would have thought five years ago we would be having this conversation about this level of investment in clean energy provided by the IRA?”

Can Virginia catch up?

“We’re still in the early innings, but this is going to be transformational for the U.S.,” Amittay said about IRA infusions. “It’s complicated because there are a lot of technical details, a lot of agencies involved and some funding programs haven’t been rolled out yet.”

Despite those hurdles nationwide, Kim Jemaine, Virginia director for Advanced Energy United, isn’t confident that Youngkin has the will or the wherewithal to catch up with other states in the Southeast.

Her organization represents businesses intent on accelerating a clean energy transition.

In her eyes, the governor has spent too much time undermining the Virginia Clean Economy Act and promoting far-off energy sources such as small modular nuclear reactors.

“By touting an all-of-the-above policy, he’s missing research and development and manufacturing opportunities in other investment spaces,” Jemaine said. “What about batteries and long-term storage? There’s a ton of untapped potential there.”

She’s also worried that some of the initial excitement about transforming the Hampton Roads region into an offshore wind hub has fizzled since Youngkin took office in 2022. That political landscape means it’s easier for existing companies to expand than for new ones to move in.

With so much ground to make up, Amittay agreed, waiting around isn’t an option.

“We all know that the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, but the next best time is today. It’s time for Virginia to think about how it can plant some trees.”

Advocates see missed opportunities as Virginia lags its neighbors in clean energy manufacturing is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

NORFOLK, Va. — Rainstorms at Tidewater Gardens public housing complex were anxiety-inducing enough. That dread among parents was only amplified when the skies opened up on schooldays.

Fast-pooling water would convert the low-lying community along the Elizabeth River floodplain into a soupy mess that trapped cars and made flippers a more fitting footwear choice than rubber boots.

“If it rained for just 10 minutes straight, it was flooded and you were stuck,” said Zenobia Wilson, a mother of three and resident of the public housing complex for 12 years. “We had to carry our children on our backs to get them to and from school.

“It was beyond boots because the water was up to our knees, every time.”

Norfolk is on the cusp of acting to tame the torrents that regularly saturated a marginalized neighborhood as climate change-induced rainfall intensifies.

Their proposed remedy is a massive endeavor to reshape both land use and water flow as the city of 233,000 plugs away at its ambitious St. Paul’s Transformation Project.

What’s called the Blue Greenway is the environmental centerpiece of the first phase of a hotly debated, $400 million undertaking to reinvent the housing, layout and vibe of a poor, majority Black community along the city’s neglected east-side waterfront.

Ideally, the linear park still in the design stage will blend the practical with the pretty to fabricate a linear 23-acre resource to capture storm water runoff, welcome back a slice of the natural world and appeal to picnickers and outdoor exercisers deprived of green spaces for decades.

Construction likely won’t begin until next spring, but landscape architect Tim Stromberg has been huddling with a team of engineers, environmental scientists, architects and other specialists for several years. They’re striving to turn a liability — stormwater runoff — into an asset.

“This area is a park desert,” said the 45-year-old principal with Norfolk-based Stromberg/Garrigan & Associates. “We see this as a health and wellness project.”

Most of the Blue Greenway will flow through the broad footprint of what was Tidewater Gardens, built in the early 1950s atop a tidal creek and a radiating network of wetlands.

The last of the red brick, barracks style apartments — where residents tangled regularly with leaks and mold infestations — was demolished in August 2023. The nearby Tidewater Park Elementary School, where parents dropped off their children, is shuttered and set to be torn down.

Just feet from the school, along bustling East Brambleton Avenue, crews will eventually “daylight” Newton’s Creek, constricted to an underground culvert for decades. That liquid spine of the Blue Greenway will wind its way south to the center of a pillar of east Norfolk’s Black community, the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.

Roughly three acres of newly constructed wetlands and the primary water channel — about the length of four football fields and up to 130 feet wide — will be the workhorses of the engineered project. They will play a gigantic role in filtering pollutants from absorbed runoff before it empties into the Elizabeth River and then the Chesapeake Bay.

Its price tag of up to $60 million will be covered with city dollars and federal grants.

Basically, it will resemble an elongated bathtub that is 8 to 9 feet deep. Its wide, encircling rim is designed as a necklace of green space dotted with amenities.

Norfolk’s extreme climate crisis 

Norfolk, part of Virginia’s expansive Tidewater region, is trying to address warming of the planet on multiple fronts because of the well-documented double-whammy effect of climate change.

Not only are deluges more intense, but sea levels are rising faster here than anywhere else on the East Coast. The latter is exacerbated by a phenomenon called subsidence. Simply put, coastal lands are sinking because communities are withdrawing — and not replenishing — enormous quantities of groundwater.

On a separate but complementary climate front, the city is in the midst of advancing a gargantuan floodwall endeavor made up of tide gates, levees, pump stations and natural features such as oyster reefs and native vegetation along the shoreline. The federal government is covering 65% of the $2.6 billion project specifically designed to protect Norfolk from catastrophic storms. State and local funds are supposed to cover the remainder.

Preventing flooding is just one of the Greenway’s climate and health benefits. It also can clean the air and mitigate the urban heat island effect, which is especially harsh in congested cities where concentrations of asphalt and concrete raise temperatures to dangerous highs.

“Climate change is about adaptation,” Stromberg said about incorporating the Blue Greenway into a reimagined neighborhood. “That made us think about the scenarios of today and of the future.”

Once it’s built, “maintaining this will require five or six city departments,” Stromberg said. “This could serve as a model for how to repurpose a piece of land for a higher and better use.”

Landscape architects, he explained, tie the built and urban environments to natural systems. 

“Creating something like this is a landscape architect’s dream,” Stromberg said about SGA’s largest project to date. “The reward when it’s built will be to see people using the space.”

After all, the handprints of former Tidewater Gardens residents are all over the Greenway’s blueprints.

‘Listening is so crucial’ 

While Stromberg’s team is handling the park’s technical infrastructure elements, they relied on input about amenities from Tidewater Gardens residents who called the 618-unit complex home until they were relocated two years ago.

“Listening is so crucial,” Stromberg said, about the joint brainstorming sessions that began in 2019. “We wanted to make sure we were extremely sensitive to the community’s needs.”

Preserving and protecting the canopy of thirsty and mature oaks, magnolias and other trees that once shaded the apartments was paramount for residents. They also wanted pavilions added for reunions, parties and cookouts. 

Yet another request centered on access to walking paths, fitness equipment, a splash park, playgrounds, basketball courts, and lessons about birds, butterflies and native plants.

“These are simple requests and we want to honor them,” Stromberg said. “This is about giving people access to something they cherish.”

Greenway plans call for planting at least 300 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 200,000 grasses and flowers.

Balancing man-made and natural systems serves as a welcome mat for inclusivity, said Mike Fox, Stromberg’s colleague.

“With the wetlands come the butterflies and frogs and crickets,” Fox said. “That whole experience, being part of nature is what’s therapeutic and adds to visitors’ serenity.”  

Who will benefit? 

Stromberg is counting on the unique oasis to be a neighborhood magnet. He noted that it can be extended north of East Brambleton Avenue, near the former elementary school.

That expansion idea remains in the mix as Norfolk plans to eventually raze and reinvent two other nearby public housing complexes shortchanged on parks — Young Terrace and Calvert Square — in the next phases of the St. Paul’s transformation.

Also, the Blue Greenway will be at the centerpiece of a related city scheme to link the St. Paul’s neighborhood to the previously inaccessible Elizabeth River Trail, the expansive downtown waterfront and Norfolk’s more affluent west side.

For 60-plus years, the community has been isolated by loud, pedestrian-unfriendly, heavily trafficked roads and a tangle of on- and off-ramps, cloverleaf interchanges and overpasses feeding Interstate 264.

City officials are studying how to tackle a large-scale roadway makeover courtesy of a federal grant designed to heal past injustices inflicted on Black communities nationwide.

Tensions have festered about who will actually benefit from such wholesale changes. 

For instance, activists with the New Virginia Majority accused the city of “saving the trees, not the people” with its Blue Greenway project. In tandem, they claim wealthier newcomers, not displaced former residents, will eventually become the majority in mixed-use housing being built near the site of Tidewater Gardens. To help prevent flooding, the new housing is being built on ground that has been elevated with at least seven feet of soil.

Stromberg is tuned in to how complicated and difficult these transitions are for cities. As the planet warms, they’re an even trickier balancing act for leaders trying to meet the needs of residents while also accounting for racist policies of the past.

“The jury is still out on what the success rate will be for the return of former Tidewater Gardens’ residents,” he said, adding he’s hoping the Blue Greenway will serve as a lure.

“As some start to move back, I can see a second wave of former residents reconnecting to their neighborhood,” he said. “The key is that they have a sense of ownership.”

Susan Perry, director of the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development since 2021, has focused on resilience and alleviating poverty in her decade-plus career with local government. 

Norfolk would have been remiss with this redevelopment project, she said, if it had stopped at simply replacing deteriorating housing and re-establishing a street grid to tether the neighborhood to downtown amenities.

The impact of soaring emissions of heat-trapping gases couldn’t be ignored.

“What we always say is that the Blue Greenway is our resilience strategy writ large,” Perry said. “It really will be a crown jewel of the neighborhood.”

This story was reported via participation in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2023 National Fellowship. The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Journalism provided training, mentoring and funding.

Climate resilience project aims to reimagine neglected, flood-prone Norfolk neighborhood is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

After languishing since 2022, a revamped measure to launch a shared solar program in southwest Virginia found daylight this year.

The General Assembly gave the go-ahead to a pair of measures (SB 255, HB 108) directing utility regulators to set up Appalachian Power’s inaugural 50 megawatt program by Jan. 1.

Despite the modest size laid out in the new law, Charlie Coggeshall, Mid-Atlantic regional director with the Coalition for Community Solar Access, is content with the breakthrough into a part of the state historically dependent on the coal industry.

“Our expectations had to be tempered significantly,” Coggeshall said. “But we got to a place where we’re putting a stake in the ground in Southwest Virginia, a win for continuing the advancement of shared solar in Virginia.”

It isn’t yet clear how soon Appalachian Power customers will be able to subscribe. The utility must provide tariff information and other related requirements by July 1, 2025.

Relatedly, the Senate and House of Delegates passed separate legislation, SB 253 and HB 106, to enlarge Dominion Energy’s existing shared solar initiative to 350 MW from its current 200 MW limit.

Shared solar, also known as community solar, allows Virginians to purchase solar power via subscriptions to communal, off-site arrays typically built and owned by third-party entities, not utilities.

The arrangement is attractive to customers who can’t afford the upfront cost of rooftop panels, residents with shaded southern exposure or subject to homeowner association restrictions, and apartment renters and condominium owners without control of their rooftops.

Ideally, subscribers earn credits in the form of savings on their monthly electric bills while also helping to pay down the cost of constructing the shared array.

Proponents are encouraged that programs for both investor-owned utilities could eventually include incentives for shared solar projects that are sited on underused surfaces such as rooftops, landfills and brownfields or that incorporate advances such as combining solar with agriculture ventures.

The Virginia Department of Energy will be organizing a stakeholder group to shape the particulars of such inducements.

Coggeshall and other advocates were disappointed two years ago when legislation aiming to set on-the-ground goals for shared solar at Appalachian Power was scuttled in favor of a bipartisan law calling on utility regulators to meet with interested parties to evaluate the program’s possibilities.

Peter Anderson, the director of state energy policy at Appalachian Voices, said proponents had no choice but to persist. Now, he added, it’s up to the State Corporation Commission to institute an affordable model that attracts subscribers and solar developers.

“I’m over the moon that we are establishing shared solar in Appalachian Power territory,” Anderson said. “But my fear is that if we don’t have demonstration projects to build from, we’ll have to go back and rewrite the bill.”

Breakthrough on ‘minimum bill’?

One continuing fractious issue with Dominion’s shared solar program is the debate over what’s called the “minimum bill.” It’s a monthly fee the utility is allowed to charge enrollees to account for the costs of implementing the program and for use of the utility’s grid infrastructure.

In 2022, regulators opted to set that fee at $55, but agreed to exempt lower-income participants from paying it.

Advocates argued that such a high charge for a renewable energy initiative designed to save customers money would prevent wealthier residents in Dominion territory from enrolling. That has indeed been the case since operators began enrolling participants last July 1.

On the other hand, the Appalachian Power program will include a minimum bill, but does not include an exemption for lower-income customers. 

“This makes it risky for solar project developers,” Coggeshall said. “With Dominion, at least developers can be somewhat confident about building a project that’s 100 percent for low- and middle-income customers. Appalachian Power doesn’t have that kind of backstop.

“Still, the interest is there. I have coalition members asking me about Southwest Virginia. I tell them the economics are to be determined. We won’t know for about a year.”

Utility regulators are tasked with setting Appalachian Power’s minimum fee. The utility pushed to reshape the legislation this session because it didn’t want non-participating customers to be burdened by any costs of adding shared solar.

“This issue is specifically listed within the bill as a factor the SCC must consider when determining the minimum bill,” spokeswoman Teresa Hamilton Hall said. “Appalachian Power worked hard to get this language inserted in the legislation, and we believe the SCC will be mindful of the financial impacts to non-participating ratepayers when making decisions.” 

While advocates will be weighing in on that docket to be sure it sets a fair minimum bill, they’re also heartened that the new Dominion law directs regulators to recalculate the current $55 minimum bill charged to market-rate subscribers.

Specifically, the commission must calculate the benefits of shared solar to the electric grid and the state, then deduct those benefits from other costs. Regulators must spell out each cost, benefit or other value used to determine the minimum charge.

The law basically requires a reconsideration of the minimum bill, Coggeshall said, adding that other states already recognize that shared solar and other distributed generation projects help utilities offset the cost of transmitting and generating power.

“Dominion has failed to look at the other side of the ledger and ask what the benefits of solar really are,” he said. “This law is forcing that discussion. Nothing is guaranteed. It’s still going to be a big fight.”

Anderson said it will be intriguing to watch how the three-member SCC — which has two new commissioners — approaches assigning a value to solar that will help dictate a minimum bill.

“The commission is where the rubber meets the road,” he said. “I’m an optimist. We’ll take our swings in front of the commission. My fingers are crossed and I’m hopeful we get projects in the ground.”

Small gains, not great leaps forward

Robin Dutta, the acting executive director of the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association, said having shared solar folded into Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 2022 Energy Plan gave it priority status among legislators.

“It’s a great example of how clean energy should be bipartisan because it’s a step forward in building an equitable clean-energy economy,” he said. “Seeing the program expand in megawatts and territory is valuable.”

Quashing any growth since shared solar legislation was first authorized would have been the worst outcome, he said.

In 2020, Fairfax County shared solar champion Sen. Scott Surovell ushered in the original legislation by reluctantly capping Dominion’s program at 150 MW. That was permitted to stretch to 200 MW if at least 30% of the enrollees qualified as lower income. No project can be larger than 5 MW.

Thus far, Dominion has greenlighted 41 shared solar projects totaling close to 150 MW, according to its website. Operators began enrolling participants last July 1 when the law took effect. Another 15 projects — which add up to 60-plus MW — are on Dominion’s waiting list.

Under the new law, half of the additional 150 MW in Dominion’s territory can cater to lower-income subscribers. However, the other 75 MW must basically be split between market-rate and lower-income subscribers.

Another switch in the Dominion program allows the utility to keep the renewable energy credits from each project so they can count toward compliance with the state’s renewable portfolio. Appalachian Power also will benefit by holding onto its renewable energy credits.

“Before, developers in Dominion territory could do anything at all with the credits,” Coggeshall said. “Monetizing the credits helped developers recover costs of building projects, so that’s a lost economic advantage. That change might provide ammunition to regulators to lower the minimum bill.”

Even though Virginia’s shared solar program is relatively small overall, Coggeshall and other advocates are hopeful a federal infusion of $156 million announced on Earth Day can widen its reach.

The Virginia Energy Department will use its Solar for All grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — part of the $7 billion national Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — to design and expand residential solar programs serving marginalized communities. Funding for the five-year program begins in 2025.

Surovell, the Senate Majority Leader who represents suburbs of Washington, D.C., latched onto the idea of shared solar in Virginia more than five years ago when he clicked on an ad for a program while visiting his vacation house in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

He signed up in five minutes during that summer of 2019 and soon discovered that tapping into an off-property array would about cover his entire electric bill.

Though the Democrat admits the learning curve has been steeper in his home state, he has doggedly sponsored legislation every year since 2020 to enlarge shared solar’s overall footprint and ensure that access to renewable energy doesn’t solely benefit affluent homeowners.

This year, he was the patron behind both Senate versions of the bills that became law. Notably, neither was amended by Youngkin. Last year, Surovell introduced Senate Bill 1266, which would have boosted total capacity to 1 GW. It passed the Senate with a nine-vote margin but failed to advance out of committee in the House.

Regulators’ decision to set a high minimum charge has continually frustrated Surovell. He has always maintained that such fees must be reasonable to attract subscribers seeking fairly priced renewable energy.

For Coggeshall, this session’s shared solar gains only reinforce the reality that Virginia is poised to embrace incremental progress, not great leaps forward.

“Virginia is not New York,” he concluded. “It has been a roller coaster trying to strike a balance to meet Virginia where it is at instead of where we want it to be.”

Virginia law expands shared solar into coal country, but key details still have to be worked out is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.