Archived Sessions from VSS21

Enjoy the sweeping VSS21 Day 1 keynote remarks featuring Emil Avram, Vice President of Business Development at Dominion Energy.  "The data really is abundantly clear that in recent human history industrial progress has led to the greater emissions of greenhouse gases such as co2 and will result in global climate change if we don't do something about it. This doesn't mean that we have to stop human progress, but it does mean that we should recognize and acknowledge the causes and effects of our actions and continue to be ever more innovative to solve these challenges before it becomes something much larger that we cannot reverse we should do this for our future generations if not for ourselves."

Constructing a ground-mounted solar energy array on a brownfield or other previously developed real property comes with its own considerations, concerns and construction best practice. Compared to greenfield development, a solar power re-development project starts with a completely different mindset from the very beginning and requires specific expertise to guide it from simple conception to successful completion. Notwithstanding the higher degree of difficulty, the right team of experts can make a solar redevelopment as viable as any greenfield development, or more so. 

Listen in to 2 luminaries in legacy land (re)use discuss the programs, funding and technical assistance offered at the state and federal levels to redevelop previously developed real estate into new uses, including renewable energy projects, and specifically solar power. Featured in this prime Day 1 session from the 2021 Virginia Solar Summit are, first, Meade Anderson, the VRP & Brownfields Program Manager at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ); and, Patricia Overmeyer, the Deputy Directory of the Office of Brownfield and Land Revitalization at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

Virginia's Pollinator-Smart innovative program is designed to provide incentives and tools for the solar industry to adopt a native plant strategy to meet soil and water control regulations, community needs, and the needs of the environment. See why Virginia is leaning into pollinator-friendly habitat policy and learn the criteria necessary to meet Virginia’s Pollinator-Smart certification program.

 Virginia has a keen interest in the revitalization of coal country and all its historic energy and mineral producing properties, many of which now lay in various states of non-productivity. Thanks to the tireless efforts of professionals in the private and public sector, particularly those in the newly renamed Virginia Energy agency, the Commonwealth is continuing to support an economic transition in this once coal dominated state. The agency has a long foundation of success in repurposing land that was once mined and its catalytic work is reaching new level of possibility as a result of support from policymakers in the way of the Clean Energy Act, and a newly formed grant program Virginia Energy will manage to promote revitalization of legacy real estate sites throughout the Commonwealth. 

Robin Ernst, President of Monarch Vegetation Services, President of Meadville Land Service, and Partner of Ernst Seed delivers powerful remarks on the environmental challenge and opportunity of ground-mounted solar projects on farmland and brownfield alike. The practical realities of building beneficial habitats for bees and butterflies is serious work, and in these clarion remarks Ms. Ernst goes beyond identifying the project bottleneck emerging in Virginia... and slowing down projects... but she also makes a clear, bold call to action for every professional in the field(s), whether greenfield, brownfield or brightfield, for higher and better forms of solar farm harnessing Mother Nature's true potential.