Solar and battery interconnection rules in Virginia

Size bands and what each one obliges

The screens that decide it

• Within the 25 kW residential net metering limit Limit 25 kW.

  Net metering is limited to 25 kilowatts for residential customers and three megawatts for non residential customers, with a separate agricultural category capped at 500 kilowatts.

• Below the 20 kW alternating current standby charge trigger Limit 20 kW.

  In Dominion territory a residential customer with an aggregate nameplate capacity exceeding 20 kilowatts of alternating current pays a monthly standby charge in addition to other charges. Other investor owned utilities are barred from residential standby charges.

• Aggregate generation on a shared single phase secondary under 20 kW Limit 20 kW.

  Virginia caps a shared single phase secondary at a flat 20 kW rather than at a percentage of the transformer, which is materially tighter than the 65 percent of transformer nameplate used in the Carolinas and will fail sites they would pass.

• Aggregate generation under 15 percent of line section annual peak load 15 percent of line section peak load, a figure only the utility holds.

  Virginia permits the peak load to be measured at the substation or calculated for the line section, where North and South Carolina require measurement at the substation. Spot network and area network screens are more generous here, at the smaller of 5 percent of a spot network maximum load or 300 kW and the smaller of 10 percent of an area network minimum load or 500 kW.

Ask the utility this, before you sell it

1. Is this customer net metered? If so this chapter does not apply at all and the separate net energy metering regulations govern, with different fees, screens and timelines. This is the single easiest way to give a Virginia customer a wrong answer.
2. Is this address in Appalachian Power or Dominion territory? Appalachian caps the facility at 100 percent of expected annual consumption from the previous twelve months of billing history and Dominion at 150 percent. Same state, fifty points apart.
3. How much of the six percent aggregate net metering cap has been used on this utility, and has the three percent review proceeding been triggered? Five percent is available to all customers and one percent is reserved for low income customers.
4. Virginia does not define whether the level boundaries are measured in alternating or direct current. Confirm which figure applies.

Worth knowing before you quote

Virginia is the most storage explicit state read at the regulation level: storage is in the chapter title, the applicability clause reaches equipment used for storage of electricity for later injection, and a zero export standby facility is a named case. The regulation also adopts IEEE 1547 prospectively, providing that where new standards conflict with the chapter the new standards apply. Virginia publishes no insurance amounts in the sections read, unlike the Carolinas which publish three tiers each.