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Culpeper supervisors authorize hearing on battery storage zoning changes amid July 1 state-law deadline
Summary
The board authorized advertising a public hearing on a zoning text amendment to separate battery energy storage from utility generation and to consider primary vs accessory uses; staff said a July 1 deadline linked to new state law could require a special meeting to adopt local performance standards to preserve local controls.
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors on June 2 authorized the planning commission to expand its review of a proposed zoning text amendment that would treat battery energy storage systems as a distinct category and clarify primary versus accessory uses.
Planning staff (Miss Harris) explained that a state law signed April 22 requires that, where a solar project is approved, battery storage must be allowed as an accessory use; the county’s earlier rules-committee recommendations had focused on battery storage as a primary use. "What the rules committee and now the planning commission has looked at is proposing a distinct definition for battery energy storage as its own definition and then have the subcategories under it for primary and accessory," Miss Harris said.
Board members raised questions about parcel definitions and legal precedents. One supervisor warned that defining "parcel" strictly by the tax map could have unintended consequences for long-held properties that were consolidated for billing convenience decades ago; staff agreed to work with legal counsel to tighten the language.
Several supervisors noted time pressure: the state statutory language ties the governing ordinance for battery storage to projects with initial interconnection requests filed before July 1, 2030 and requires that local rules in effect July 1, 2026 will govern those applications. Staff said that to preserve locally crafted performance standards the county might need to call a special meeting before the end of June to hold a public hearing and adopt standards to be in place by July 1.
The board voted to authorize advertisement of the public hearing, with a tentative date discussed for June 24 at 7 p.m. and direction that staff include accessory-use language so the planning commission can consider both the primary and accessory categories together.
