Facebook Adds 9th Dominion Energy Solar Facility in Virginia to its Portfolio

Dominion Energy and Facebook are continuing their joint effort to increase renewable energy generation by adding a new solar facility in Virginia

Dominion Energy and Facebook are continuing their joint effort to increase renewable energy generation by adding a new solar facility in Greensville County, Virginia, to the list of those that will be dedicated to Facebook.

Sadler Solar, a 100 MW facility located in Greensville County, was approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission on Jan. 22, 2020, and is expected to become operational by the end of 2020. Dominion Energy will build, own and operate the solar facility. Facebook will purchase the environmental attributes generated by the solar facility.  

Sadler joins eight other Dominion Energy solar projects in Virginia and North Carolina that support Facebook’s operations with renewable energy.

“Partnerships with companies like Facebook help drive the addition of renewable energy to the grid,” said Emil Avram, Dominion Energy’s vice president, Business Development. “We are honoured to work with them to help meet their sustainability goals as well as continue to expand renewable energy across the Dominion Energy service area.”

The partnership was created to help enable Facebook’s goal of supporting its global operations with 100 percent renewable energy in 2020. Partnerships with voluntary renewable energy buyers like Facebook are important to making possible Dominion Energy’s goal of adding 3,000 MW of new solar and wind energy in operation or under development in Virginia by 2022. 

“We are proud to continue to grow our partnership with Dominion Energy by adding this new 100-MW project to the grid,” said Urvi Parekh, head of Renewable Energy at Facebook. “Since 2017, this partnership has resulted in over 690 MW of new solar energy in Virginia and North Carolina and has helped strengthen the renewable energy market in the region.”

In December 2019, we had reported that Walton Electric Membership Corporation (EMC), a consumer-owned utility had executed contracts with Silicon Ranch on behalf of Facebook for two new solar projects totaling 125 megawatts (MW) as part of its agreement to supply 100 percent renewable energy for Facebook’s data center in Newton County, Georgia.