Builders have always worked with the climate — thick walls, shade, cross-ventilation. Today’s version of that instinct is electrification, and every piece of it needs a permit: the heat pump, the rooftop array, the EV charger and the service upgrade that feeds it. That makes permit data the most granular public record of how fast sustainable construction is actually happening.
What Virginia Beach’s permits show
Virginia Beach’s feed in the Buildstats catalog is complete from 2023. Counting distinct permits whose type or description names the technology:
| Year | Heat pumps | Solar / PV | EV chargers | All permits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 344 | 876 | 98 | 26,548 |
| 2024 | 459 | 750 | 116 | 27,820 |
| 2025 | 958 | 614 | 157 | 28,891 |
| 2026 to date | 1,057 | 707 | 142 | 24,048 |
2026 runs through early October.
Three different stories:
- Heat pumps nearly tripled from 2023 to 2025 — and 2026 passed 2025’s full-year total before October.
- Solar fell two years running, from 876 to 614 permits, before picking up in 2026.
- EV chargers grew 60%, from 98 to 157, off a small base.
For an HVAC distributor, a solar installer or a utility planning load, those are the trends that matter — and they are visible a year before they show up in sales figures.
Turning counts into targets
The permit says an installation happened. The property tells you who is next:
- Parcels — Land Records. Join permits to parcels on
parcel_idand you get year built, building size, land use and owner for every installation. Homes of the same age and size, on the same streets, without a heat-pump permit are the next market. - Zoning — ZoneOptics. Ground-mounted solar, battery storage and accessory structures are governed by setbacks, lot coverage and use rules that vary by district. ZoneOptics reads Virginia Beach’s ordinance into those standards so you can check what a lot allows before you quote it.
- Flood risk — also Land Records. FEMA flood zones on every parcel tell you where equipment has to be elevated, which changes the job and the price.
Get the data
Virginia Beach city and Loudoun County are available now — full history, or a monthly subscription to the past 12 months. Every record carries the permit type and work description these counts are built from. See pricing.