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A 100-megawatt solar generation facility is poised to materialize in Stevensburg in the next few years, since the winning was approved in 2018.

This month, the Culpeper County Planning Commission is not ready to approve the Greenwood site plan. The panel delayed action, not surprisingly, on the initial review during its August 10 meeting.

County staff recommended approval.

Planning Commission approval is not required for the project that will extend 732 acres of farmland, pasture and timberland from Batna and Blackjack roads, along Dominion’s transmission line.

It is the only solar plant of several proposed in the Culpeper area with an approved conditional-use permit, which was granted nearly four years ago.

Plan approved, extensive site work Project plans show eight construction entrances for the project designated at 12 separate locations. The main route for trucks is from Blackjack Road.

NextEra Energy based in Juno Beach, Fla. will develop the project with 350,000 solar panels and associated equipment, storm water management installations, a fenced perimeter and substation. Extensive clearing and harvesting of timberland was involved in site preparation.

NextEra submitted more than 180 pages of construction documents and drawings for review by the planning commission, which has two months to act on the site plan. This is a final step before construction begins.

Project Director Heath Barefoot, with NextEra Energy, attended a recent county boardroom meeting. He had little interaction with the commissioners, responding to a question confirming that his company had taken over the project from a previous developer.

There were a lot of questions and comments from the planners, but the bulk of the application was finally put in place.

Timmons Group’s site plan documents include extensive plans for dozens of sediment basins around the project, which will be built on several parcels, adjacent to the site for the recently approved Amazon data center, according to recent analysis by the Piedmont Environmental Council.

The Warrenton-based regional nonprofit, dedicated to Virginia’s Northern Piedmont, is one of several local and state historic preservation and open-space conservation groups opposed to Greenwood Solar in Stevensburg.

Project plans also show a series of clean water channels around the panels, silt fences, embankments and an excavated earth spillway. The effects of mass grading will be minimal, Culpeper County Planning Director Sam McLearen told the planning commission.

McLearen said the developer is trying to meet the goal of the 50 acres per hour grading limit included in the county’s 2019 solar policy, even though it is not required.

The project has extensive, required landscaping and screening and is consistent with the county’s comprehensive plan, he said.

The Culpeper Soil & Water Conservation District has signed off on the site plan for Culpeper’s first large scale solar project. Not the Planning Commission.

Planners delay vote, can’t stop project“It’s very hard to say we’re ready to go through with that, with all of our questions,” said member Cindy Thornhill at the start of things.

Members Keith Price and Nate Clancy agreed, asking to delay the case until September, the latter saying he needed more time to digest the application.

Clancy said large-scale solar is a hot-button issue, and wondered if Greenwood would have to reapply under current policies.

Commissioner Doug Grover reminded his fellow members that the use of the property was approved in 2018.

“We’re not here to decide that,” he said. “As far as saying, ‘I don’t want this,’ that was years ago. I just want to make it clear that these plans have been approved by all the review agencies. Our approval of this is a formality at this point.

The Planning Commission could deny the site plan, Grover said.

“That doesn’t deny their right to build,” he said.

The neighbors were sued; The ‘yes’ vote was slimGreenwood Solar, valued at $130 million by 2020, surviving a 2019 lawsuit filed against the Board of Supervisors by neighbors who claimed the solar plant would destroy their pastoral watching. Neighbors claimed in the lawsuit that the project would harm property values ​​in an area known for its agriculture and history.

The suit asked the Circuit Court to reverse county approval, claiming the project was green-lighted in violation of the Virginia Code Commonwealth Energy Policy that mandates “reasonable requirements” for such projects.

Judge Susan Whitlock, now retired, sided with the county, ruling the board acted within its legal rights to approve the solar project, in accordance with the Energy Policy.

He directed the 2020 local standards related to renewable energy projects in Virginia to provide for local protection in a manner consistent with the state’s stated goals to promote solar and wind power.

“Reasonable requirements” for limiting construction noise, buffers and setbacks from neighboring properties and decommissioning should also be included, the judge said, finding those in Greenwood plan.

Only three members of the seven-member Board of Supervisors voted to greenlight Greenwood Solar in 2018. Only one of them—current board chairman Gary Deal—is still on the local governing body.

The other two “yes” votes came from Supervisors Sue Hansohn and Alexa Fritz.

Brad Rosenberger, who is still on the board, abstained from voting on the conditional use permit, due to potential business interests, as did Stevensburg Supervisor Bill Chase. The county’s longest-serving supervisor died on July 14, after losing the 2021 election for the first time in 40 years.

Chase agreed that a portion of the Greenwood project would run through his land, and disclosed that fact early on.

PEC: Proposal opposes land-use plan Neighbors continue to oppose the big project. So did the Piedmont Environmental Council, which in an Aug. 9 letter raised concerns about land use changes in the area and questioned whether the application still complies with the comp plan.

The letter said Amazon was approved in April to build a 430,000 square foot data center on 243 acres of land adjacent to Greenwood Solar.

“Both developments seem to require additional electrical infrastructure such as two new substations reserved for the same Amazon data center and Greenwood Solar plans and possibly additional transmission lines, ” said the letter.

“The result is more than 1,000 hectares that have become highly industrialized in an area that was not planned for any development beyond agriculture. This is more than expected in 2018.”

Another major land use change is the recent approval of Culpeper Battlefields State Park, 1,700-acres of Civil War battlefields at Cedar Mountain and Brandy Station, set to open July 1. , 2024, the PEC letter said.

Greenwood is not adjacent to the park area, but is part of the landscape around it and this development will affect the situation experienced by tourists and visitors, said PEC.

Anticipating a ‘disruptive process’ Stevensburg District resident Desy Campbell, in a letter on August 10, requested that the project be denied.

“This project is like taking over a paved parking lot, in the middle of a large plot of land in Culpeper County, complete with multiple solar panels that direct the flow of water when the sky is clear. of watery, windy anger—now a more common occurrence than in the past,” Campbell wrote.

Commissioner Raymond Zegley asked about the oft-discussed topic of blasting the solar plant site. A Timmons engineer responded that it was a construction method considered in compliance with a geotechnical report.

He said firing would not be recommended unless “absolutely necessary.”

Commissioner Katie Reames asked about pesticides on the site.

Price asked how the substation that would serve the facility would be connected to the Dominion power grid.

“Is there still a Dominion tower in that area?” he asked.

The Timmons engineer said no. That is why the project is located next to high-voltage transmission lines, he said.

The project will be bordered by a chain-link fence with barbed wire, he said.

Price, along with the rest of the commission, voted to delay a public hearing on the case until September 14.

He said, in closing remarks, that the massive project would be “a disruptive process.”