LoudounNow Now LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 2, No. 6 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
Spotlight on Chef Ross
26
Dec. 15 – 21, 2016 ]
A New Crop for Virginia Farms: The Sun Ag Businesses Push Flexibility for Solar Producers BY RENSS GREENE
K
aren Schaufeld had one field at New River Farm near Leesburg that wasn’t much good for growing anything. So rather than spend money on crops that may or may not turn a profit, she decided to turn it toward a more reliable crop: solar energy. She put up enough solar panels to offset the power needs of one of the buildings on the property. “I quickly discovered that unless I wanted to physically interconnect it across my creek to my building, I was not allowed to sell it to the utility,” Schaufeld told a room of people during a solar energy panel discussion at her farm. “I had to actually file as an independent power producer for my tiny, tiny array, and quickly discovered that the cost associated with that made sure that it was completely uneconomical.” She had run into one of many stumbling blocks to putting up solar arrays in Virginia. Since that time, the landscape for solar in Virginia has shifted, but slowly. Electric customers can now generate some of their own power, with new power meters that permit net metering—in other words, measuring the power the customer generates against the power the customer uses, and only charging or issuing credits for the balance. As of 2015, the law permits residential power customers to generate up to 20
Judge Upholds Life Sentence In Castillo Murder BY NORMAN K. STYER Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Stephen E. Sincavage on Friday sentenced Braulio M. Castillo to serve the rest of his life in prison for the murder
Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Karen Schaufeld leads a tour of her 466-kilowatt solar farm near Leesburg on Tuesday. Proposed legislation coming before the General Assembly would allow farms to generate up to 1.5 megawatts of power.
kilowatts, and nonresidential customers to generate up to 1 megawatt, and not more than the property’s actual usage over the course of a year. So Schaufeld expanded her solar arrays to cover the power needs of all nine buildings on her farm. “Now our challenge is, I wanted to use this as a revenue generator, because I happen to be farming, and I want something of his estranged wife, Michelle. The ruling comes 33 months after her children awoke to find their mother was missing from their Ashburn home. Hours later, her body was found hanging
that’s a steady, reliable income over the years,” Schaufeld said. And she, her allies in movement, and her organization Powered by Facts, are making progress. A bill being drafted now for the General Assembly would allow farmers to generate up to 1.5 megawatts and 150 percent of the farm’s total usage. It would also establish solar farms as an from an extension cord in the shower of a basement bathroom. During a five-week trial that ended in June, a Loudoun jury concluded that Castillo broke into the home and strangled his wife while their kids were asleep and then staged her death to appear like a suicide. The hearing concluded a roller coaster week for the families and the large contingent of Michelle Castillo’s friends and supporters who filled the courtroom each time the case was heard. Last
Castillo
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agricultural use to clear up local zoning confusion. Virginia Beach and Norfolk Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-7), who chairs the Commerce and Labor Committee that oversees energy policy in the General Assembly, said allowing customers to sell excess SOLAR>> 7 Monday, Castillo’s attorneys pushed to overturn the conviction; they waited until Thursday to hear Sincavage deny those motions. Friday afternoon’s sentence hearing focused on the aftermath of that March 20, 2014, morning, specifically the impact on the family’s children who lost their mother and father at once—and on providing a sense of closure. The couple’s oldest children, Nicholas CASTILLO >> 39
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