In Memory of Eric Hurlocker: Solar Warrior, Trusted Partner, and Friend

Eric Hurlocker was well known in Virginia’s clean energy community for providing legal counsel that helped companies like ours build a dynamic solar industry nearly from scratch. Through that work, he became more than a trusted advisor—he became my friend.

After courageously battling kidney cancer for the past few years, Eric passed away on May 23. We miss him deeply—as a friend, a partner, an innovator, and a true solar warrior. He was unfailingly creative, warm, witty, and thoughtful, always quick to deflect credit. Yet behind that humility stood a fearless spear-carrier, helping our company and many others overcome the barriers to solar energy in Virginia.

I first met Eric at a breakfast meeting in Richmond on April 20, 2009—fittingly, during Earth Week—thanks to an introduction from Laura Jones at Hunton & Williams. At the time, we were looking for the best legal minds in the state to help us develop Virginia’s first solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). The PPA model, pioneered by Jigar Shah in New Jersey in 2004, was already gaining traction in six other states by 2009. But Virginia had yet to adopt this financing structure that made solar affordable by removing upfront capital costs.

We knew what we wanted to do could make a difference in growing clean energy. We didn’t yet realize how steep the road ahead would be.

Eric had previously served as Assistant General Counsel at Dominion Energy, which gave us confidence that he not only understood the terrain—but also the traps within it. Together, we worked tirelessly to build the legal framework that could make solar viable for schools, universities, hospitals, and businesses across the Commonwealth.

Our first customer was Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, which wanted to install solar panels on its library. It took 18 months of persistence and creative problem-solving to:

• Negotiate the first net metering policy with a municipal utility (Harrisonburg Electric Commission)
• Secure a city ordinance to exempt solar equipment from local taxation
• Execute Virginia’s first solar PPA with EMU

At the time, I was co-director of EMU’s MBA program. Alongside President Loren Swartzendruber, we worked with utility executives, city leaders, and EMU’s conservative board to get this groundbreaking project approved. A lucky break helped too: we won a state grant lottery and accessed U.S. Treasury 1603 funds—at the height of the financial crisis—allowing an EMU professor to finance, build, own, and operate a solar system worth 20 times his annual salary.

But just as we inked our first PPA with EMU and HEC, Dominion renegotiated its wholesale contract with the utility to disallow future PPAs. Meanwhile, at Washington and Lee University (W&L), we were midway through installing solar arrays when Dominion issued two cease-and-desist letters in 2011.

Eric stood tall for us at the State Corporation Commission, going toe-to-toe with eleven attorneys from some of Richmond’s biggest law firms. Though SCC staff informally supported our position, we learned that justice often depends less on being right than on being able to afford the fight. Continuing that battle could have been financially ruinous.

Thanks to Eric’s legal creativity, we pivoted. We converted the W&L PPA into an equipment lease to complete the project. Then, Eric proposed a bold new model that would work under Virginia law: the Solar Self-Generation Agreement (SGA), modeled after a utility-scale tolling contract.

In December 2013, we launched Virginia’s first SGA with a humble 3.5 kW system atop the United Church of Christ in Chesterfield—a bold congregation that helped us fly under Dominion’s radar. That single project opened doors to other utility territories, including APCo, electric co-ops, and even back to HEC. In 2015, we were honored by the regional chapter of SEIA as “Innovative Champion” for developing the SGA model.

After months of patient persuasion, Eric officially joined Secure Futures as a Partner in 2013, alongside another of our legal eagles, Matt Ferguson. From that point on, Eric never missed a partner meeting. Our annual Winter Solstice gatherings were a special tradition—festive occasions where we shared triumphs, setbacks, and lessons learned.

Perhaps Eric’s proudest moment as a partner in our company—and as a proud “Spider” alumnus of the University of Richmond and graduate of its law school—was during the dedication of the university’s solar array in the spring of 2016. Our company developed and continues to operate the system on the roof of the Weinstein Center. It represented the first legal solar PPA project in Virginia under enabling legislation that our company introduced with Senator John Edwards in 2013—legislation that Eric helped draft. From that moment on, Eric proudly hung one of the spare solar panels from the project in his office.

Eric’s fingerprints are all over Secure Solar Futures and the advancement of solar energy policy in Virginia. From helping introduce the first solar PPA in 2010, to co-developing the SGA, to crafting legal and financial strategies that pushed past entrenched resistance—his legacy is unmistakable.

Eric believed in a better energy future. And thanks to his brilliance, grit, and generous spirit, that future is closer than ever.

His legacy lives on.

Sol Invictus.

— Anthony “Tony” Smith