Wind and Solar Leasing in Patrick County, Virginia

No zoning meant solar was negotiated case by case, not mapped by district

Patrick County's hub page covers the county's most basic distinctive fact: it has not adopted a comprehensive, countywide zoning ordinance. For a landowner approached about a wind or solar lease, that absence matters in a very specific way. In most Virginia counties, where a solar facility can go, and under what conditions, is answered by a zoning map and an overlay-district ordinance. Without that map, Patrick County's Board of Supervisors instead negotiated individual facility-siting agreements for early solar proposals and separately adopted a revenue-sharing ordinance for solar energy projects and energy storage systems around 2022, before later formalizing a countywide solar-specific ordinance. If you're being approached about a lease today, do not assume the county's approach mirrors what a neighboring, zoned county would require -- the applicable process and even the amount of local government leverage over your specific project has genuinely shifted more than once in the last few years.

The Fairy Stone Solar approval and withdrawal: a real precedent, not a hypothetical

In March 2024, Patrick County's Board of Supervisors voted 3-2, after nearly two hours of contentious public discussion, to approve the Fairy Stone Solar project -- a 12-megawatt facility proposed on 211 acres southeast of the town of Stuart, expected to generate enough electricity for just over 2,000 homes. It was the county's first approved utility-scale solar project, and residents raised concerns at the hearing about the facility's effect on the area's rural, scenic character near Fairy Stone State Park. The approval did not end up producing a built project, though: by August 2024, the developer (Energix Renewables) told the county the project would not move forward, after Appalachian Power's interconnection analysis found that the Stuart substation Energix wanted to connect to could support only about 4 megawatts without causing unacceptable voltage changes on the grid -- far short of the 12 megawatts the project needed. A second proposed project in the Woolwine area was withdrawn around the same time.

The practical lesson for a landowner here is not about zoning at all -- it's about grid interconnection capacity, which can kill an otherwise-approved project regardless of what local land-use approval a developer has secured. If a developer is offering you a lease predicated on a specific project size, ask directly whether interconnection capacity at the substation the project would use has already been studied and confirmed for that capacity, not just assumed.

A 2025 ban on utility-scale solar, then a 2026 ordinance allowing smaller projects by special exception

The county's posture toward solar shifted again in April 2025, when the Board of Supervisors amended its Comprehensive Plan to prohibit utility-scale solar facilities outright, citing concerns about impacts on the local landscape, natural resources, and rural character, and stating that such facilities did not meaningfully contribute to local jobs or the economy. That amendment passed with only limited public comment and one dissenting vote. Then, after further deliberation, the Board adopted a comprehensive Solar Energy Facilities Ordinance in February 2026 that appears to formalize a narrower path rather than reopening the door to large-scale projects: medium-scale solar installations (generally described as larger than 500 kilowatts but not exceeding 5 megawatts) require a special-exception approval from the Board of Supervisors under the new ordinance, with a $25,000 application fee and an ongoing annual revenue-share payment to the county of $1,400 per megawatt of nameplate capacity (a figure the ordinance allows the Board to revise in the future). Utility-scale projects above that threshold remain subject to the state-level Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity process through the Virginia State Corporation Commission, with the county retaining its own authority over local land-use impacts, environmental protections, and decommissioning requirements even where the state issues the underlying certificate.

In plain terms: as of this research pass, a small or medium solar array on your land (under 5 MW) is the kind of project genuinely governed by Patrick County's own new special-exception process, application fee, and per-megawatt revenue-share structure -- while a large, utility-scale array faces both the 2025 Comprehensive Plan language disfavoring it and a state-level certification process layered on top of continuing county authority. Given how quickly this picture has changed -- three distinct regulatory postures in about two years -- confirm the current, as-adopted ordinance text and any Comprehensive Plan language directly with the county before relying on a project size or timeline a developer presents to you.

What to check before signing a solar lease or option in Patrick County

1. Ask the Patrick County Administrator's office or Planning Commission for the current, as-adopted text of the Solar Energy Facilities Ordinance (February 2026) and confirm whether the Comprehensive Plan's utility-scale prohibition remains in effect -- both have changed within the last two years and could change again.
2. Confirm which size category your proposed project falls into (small, medium 500 kW-5 MW, or utility-scale) and what approval process, fee, and revenue-share obligation actually applies -- these differ substantially by size under the current ordinance.
3. If the project depends on connecting to a specific substation, ask the developer directly whether interconnection capacity at that point has been studied and confirmed -- Fairy Stone Solar's 2024 collapse happened after approval, over exactly this issue.
4. Get the full lease or option agreement, not a summary, and have a Virginia real-estate or energy attorney review its term length, compensation structure, decommissioning obligations, and what happens to those obligations if county rules change again during the lease term.
5. Ask whether a decommissioning bond or reserve fund is required under the current ordinance, and who bears removal costs if the project is retired or the developer cannot complete it -- as happened with Fairy Stone.