Virginia’s 2026 Legislative Session Delivered Major Clean Energy Wins

On January 14, 2026, the Virginia General Assembly launched its ‘long’ 60-day legislative session with several notable changes from the previous year. Democrats in the House of Delegates flipped 13 seats during the November 2025 elections, giving them a 14-seat majority. The Commonwealth also swore in Governor Abigail Spanberger, the first woman to ever fill the seat, who campaigned on issues addressing affordability and offered a more pragmatic approach to governing. Several lawmakers were pulled from the General Assembly to fill roles in the new governor’s administration, creating space for old lawmakers to shift chambers and new lawmakers to enter public service  

Energy affordability was among the top three issues for the General Assembly, behind congressional redistricting and budget shortfalls resulting from federal cuts to healthcare. Concerns surrounding rising energy prices became a kitchen table issue in 2025 and 2026, as some families saw their bills increase as much as nine percent between 2024 and 2025. As a result, many of the energy policies that came out of the 2026 General Assembly focused on ways to lower the average cost of electricity, largely by confronting the state’s imbalance between energy supply and demand. Virginia retains the title as the world’s data center capitol and continues to experience growing levels of residential, commercial, and transportation electrification. The rise in demand required fast, effective solutions that ratepayers could feel.

Through our proactive legislative strategy, our daily presence in the capitol building, and relationships with key lawmakers and coalition partners, Advanced Energy United’s Virginia team succeeded in delivering pivotal legislative wins for the clean energy industry by providing lawmakers with the energy affordability solutions they were looking for.  

Accelerating Speed to Power  

United led a tight coalition of industry and environmental partners to pass legislation that will allow the state to take advantage of surplus interconnection on the grid, following a December 2024 change within the PJM Interconnection rules that allows more flexible assets to co-locate with existing inverter-based resources. The new rule allows new generating resources or batteries to be installed without the need for a separate interconnection study, which could delay a project for 5 to 7 years. The Facilitating Access to Surplus Transmission (FAST) Act (HB 1065/SB 508) requires Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company (APCO) to assess their solar projects for surplus interconnection potential and construct respective pilot programs through a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process. As passed, the legislation is the strongest surplus interconnection law across the country to date, delivering speed to power across the Commonwealth.  

United also prioritized the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) Reform bill (HB 429/SB 249), which makes room for greater efficiencies to the grid through its changes to the IRP process. The most notable changes include: 

• requiring APCO to file their own IRP, which they were never before required to do; 

• extending the planning timeline from 15 to 20 years; 

• changing the frequency of each utility’s filing from biennially to triennially; 

• requiring the utilities to consider the use of grid enhancing technologies (GETs) to eliminate the need for new transmission infrastructure, and surplus interconnection to add new energy storage resources to the grid; 

• and requiring the IRP stakeholder review process to be facilitated by a third party with greater access to modeling software, assumptions, inputs, and data.

Affordable Clean Energy Package 

With a more favorable political environment this year, Virginia was able to pass additional legislation introduced by the Equitable Solar and Storage Coalition (ESSC) under its Affordable Clean Energy Package. The legislative vehicles in the package will increase clean energy generation and capacity with a particular focus on affordability. As members of the ESSC Steering Committee, United played a large supportive role in passing these bills.  

• The Distributed Generation Expansion Act (HB 628/SB 175), which received bipartisan support, increases Virginia’s solar potential by expanding the distributed generation carveout of the Virginia Clean Economy Act from 1% to 4.5% from 2026 to 2030 compliance years, then 5% from 2031 to 2045 compliance years. The legislation also delays Dominion’s 75% in-state requirement from 2025 to 2027. Finally, by removing restrictions on the power purchase agreement pilot, the bill opens access to clean energy and local energy resilience for residential system owners.   

• The Energy Storage bill (HB 895/SB 448), sets new and ambitious targets for short-duration and long-duration energy storage capacity and facilitates the development of model ordinances, opens up greater capacity across the Commonwealth. The legislation creates a pathway for generating resources like solar and wind to have a more substantive impact across the state.   

• The Consumer Protection (HB 1439/SB 823) bill imposes reasonable rules and safeguards for consumers and installers of residential and commercial solar projects, which will increase public comfort with this technology.    

• Smart Rooftop Permitting (HB 590/SB 382) creates an online Smart Solar Permitting Platform to streamline the permitting process so homeowners can energize their solar systems faster and more easily. 

• The Balcony Solar (HB 395/SB 250) bill prevents localities and utility companies from prohibiting the use of small portable solar devices and imposing interconnection requirements. These devices are ideal for residents in apartment buildings or homes that can’t accommodate full-size solar systems, helping more people contribute to load reduction on the grid.

Grid Flexibility 

Expanding grid flexibility is one of United’s core policy priorities This year, Virginia passed several bills that would compel utility companies to explore more ways for demand side management or increase supply of energy resources. 

• The widely bipartisan Demand Flexibility (HB 284/SB 371) bill directs the utility companies and the cooperatives to work to create a voluntary demand flexibility program for high-demand energy consumers. Such programs should help reduce electricity demand from participating customers. 

• This Electric Cooperative Virtual Power Plant (VPP) (HB 562/SB 487) bill authorizes co-ops to establish and implement VPP programs to aggregate distributed generation resources for the purpose of creating more available energy or reducing the amount we call for. The Appalachian Power Company VPP (HB 1467) requires APCO to do the same.

Additional Wins 

United supported the following bills because of their design to increase access to clean energy and deliver real savings to the Virginians who need it the most: 

• Solar Standards (HB 711/SB 347) requires all localities to review medium- and large-scale solar system applications and sets up design guidelines for them to follow. The bill also requires the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to track the reasons for project denials. This bill should help thwart some of the arbitrary rejections of solar projects across the state.   

• The Virginia Energy Savers Act (HB 1062/SB 327) sets up a pilot program through the SCC to build electric energy conservation, solar energy generation and energy storage resources for low-income, disabled, and elderly individuals. The bill also sets up a technical conference for a pay-as-you-save program. These programs could help provide a service for those individuals who view this technology as out of reach, but who would benefit the most from it.   

• The Shared Solar bills for APCO (HB 809/SB 255) and Dominion (HB 807/SB 254) expands the community solar programs in each of the service territories and requires net crediting functionality for customer utility bills. These bills enable access to clean solar energy for homeowners and residents who can’t power their lives through other means of solar energy.  

• The Standby Charges for Net Metering (HB 1255) increases the size threshold of solar energy systems susceptible to monthly standby charges as part of their net energy metering program. This legislation will provide greater savings for owners of solar systems under 20kW versus the 15kW where standby charges previously applied. This bill will encourage more homeowners to adopt solar and export their excess energy to the grid. 

• The Transportation Electrification bill (HB 1225/SB 407) permits the utility companies to provide utility-owned and operated distribution infrastructure for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, but prohibits them from owning charging stations within a certain radial distance from privately-owned charging stations. Programs like this will encourage more EV adoption and pull drivers away from the vehicles that pollute our air and increase our reliance on fossil fuels.

The Way Ahead 

The bills above are not the only energy bills that passed into law this session, but they are the ones most likely to make a meaningful difference on speeding up deployment of advanced energy and improving energy affordability across the Commonwealth. By all counts, the 2026 General Assembly delivered a strong set of results and created renewed optimism for the years ahead. Virginia now has an opportunity to lead by example and show the rest of the country that advanced energy solutions strengthen the grid and lower costs. Continued progress will require sustained investment and political will, but this session showed what can happen when lawmakers treat grid readiness as an avenue to urgently address affordability. There is still more work to do, and Advanced Energy United will continue working alongside lawmakers, regulators, and coalition partners to deliver practical clean energy solutions to the Commonwealth.