Virginia’s Clean Energy Transition
“From a fossil-fuel friendly state with only a small renewables presence, Virginia went to one with a mandatory schedule for phasing out fossil fuels by 2050, participation in a regional carbon market and some of the highest renewables targets in the nation,” writes Saray Vogelsong in Virginia Mercury’s Energy + Environment.
“Much of this transition will occur under the aegis of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, a law described by Sigora Solar policy chief and Solar Energy Industries Association board member Karla Loeb as “the single largest shift in energy policy as it relates to the electricity sector that’s ever been achieved in any state.” But that law wasn’t the only major clean energy legislation to get the General Assembly’s stamp of approval. Other measures sought to give local governments more power in negotiating permits with large-scale solar developers, to give apartment-dwellers access to solar and to pump money into low-income energy efficiency efforts. ”
