Abstract
Anthropogenic global climate change is threatening our planet. Human energy demand and consumption has been rapidly increasing throughout the world. In order to combat global climate change from greenhouse gases emissions, increase in renewable energy development is crucial. Solar energy is one of the fastest growing renewable energy source in the world and in the United States. In Spotsylvania County, Virginia, a solar energy company called sPower proposed one of the biggest solar farms in the East Coast. Because of the size, scale, economic viability, environmental concerns, and more, there has been push back from the concerned citizens of the Spotsylvania County. Although there were numerous methodology, scale, and criteria to assess the economic viability of the proposed solar farm, there has been a lack of consensus on which information is unbiased and accurate. This report hopes to address the economic viability of the Spotsylvania County solar farm project by analyzing land assessment and property tax values in an unbiased stance. To put Spotsylvania County situation into perspective, Amazon Solar Farm US East in Accomack County, Virginia was used as a case study as well. Although this report uses one specific methodology to analyze land assessment and property tax values, further studies are needed to be done to create a methodology where tax reduction and other factors are taken into a consideration.
Paper prepared for the Geography Capstone.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Salisbury
Document Type
Unpublished Paper
Publication Date
4-30-2019
Recommended Citation
Jeong, Evelyn. "The Current and Future Land Assessment Analysis and Property Taxes Analysis of the Land of Proposed Solar Farm in Spotsylvania County." Paper for Geography Capstone, University of Richmond, April 2019.