Renewables at War in the Worcesters
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy
1. Worcester County, Massachusetts – The town of Oakham is piping mad about battery energy storage.
- A Rhynland Energy BESS facility filed a request with Massachusetts regulators in April to override longstanding local reservations against battery storage, dating back to a previous project fight from 2022. Local conservative organizations have been amplifying opposition to the project.
- Rhyland may be able to sidestep Oakham’s opposition thanks to a new permitting law providing for exemptions from local restrictions, a la Michigan and other “primacy” states.
2. Worcester County, Maryland – A different drama is going down in a different Worcester County on Maryland’s eastern shore, where fishing communities are rejecting financial compensation from U.S. Wind tied to MarWin, its offshore project.
- U.S. Wind offered $20 million to fishing communities directly, including a large “Maryland Fishing Community Resilience Fund.” But the mayor of Ocean City has rejected the proposal, calling it a buyout.
- This is yet another example of the struggles in community benefit approaches that include direct payments: they can very quickly backfire.
3. Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania – A Pivot Energy solar project is moving ahead with getting its conditional use permit in the small town of Ransom, but is dealing with considerable consternation from residents next door.
- Local reporting indicates that neighbors are upset about proximity primarily and successfully got Pivot to move its project back to a 500-foot buffer from their property lines. A decision will be made on the project in 45 days and it is unclear where the local officials will land.
- Two things leave me pessimistic about its chances: First, the project site features Heatmap Pro’s highest risk rating at a 99. Second, the county is something of a graveyard of solar farms; multiple nearby projects have been killed by local governments.
4. Cumberland County, North Carolina – It’s hard out here for a 5-megawatt solar project, apparently.
- The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners has rejected a solar project requested by the city of Fayetteville’s public works panel, apparently without a fulsome effort by the commissioners to resolve their concerns with the city’s officials.
5. Barren County, Kentucky – Remember the Geenex solar project getting in the fight with a National Park? The county now formally has a restrictive ordinance on solar… that will allow projects to move through permitting.
- Building solar in Barren County will now require a 1,000-foot buffer zone from property lines.
6. Stark County, Ohio – Stark Solar is no more, thanks to the Ohio Public Siting Board.
- If you remember, the OPBS rejected Stark Solar’s project. The company is now declining to appeal, telling the public in a statement that it is dropping development.
- Stark had the option to appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, which recently affirmed a favorable ruling by the OPBS for Harvey Solar in Licking County. It’s unclear why the company opted not to appeal, although perhaps getting the court to affirm a green light is easier than reversing a rejection.
7. Cheboygan County, Michigan – A large EDP Renewables solar project called the Northern Waters Solar Park is entering the community relations phase and – stop me if you’ve heard this before – it’s getting grumbles from locals.
- Locals parried EDP with questions at a recent community meeting and reportedly have the backing of Michigan state senator Cam Cavitt, a lawmaker involved in leading the effort to undo the state’s permitting primacy law.
8. Adams County, Illinois – A Summit Ridge Energy solar project located near the proposal in the town of Ursa we’ve been covering is moving forward without needing to pay the city taxes, due to the project being just outside city limits.
- The city is in control of the project and will decide whether to permit it but it will not pay the city taxes. Making matters more difficult, the project will require the conversion of agricultural land to industrial zoning. We’ll have to wait and see how Summit Ridge navigates this tricky wicket.
9. Cottonwood County, Minnesota – National Grid Renewables has paused work on the Plum Creek wind farm despite having received key permits to build, a sign that economic headwinds may be more powerful than your average NIMBY these days.
- Plum Creek, as far as I can tell, faced little headwinds of its own locally. NGR cited the impacts of tariffs on construction costs for the pause as well as inflation.
10. Oklahoma County, Oklahoma – Turns out you can’t kill wind in Oklahoma that easily.
- Despite a rabid activist campaign to get the Sooner state to stop wind altogether, the state’s GOP Senate pro tem Lonnie Paxton said in a public statement issued Tuesday that he would not allow passage of legislation mirroring a bill from the state House that would set what he called “unreasonable” setbacks on the tip height of a wind turbine.
- Paxton also called the bill “overreaching legislation that is a massive violation of private property rights.”
- This may doom the chances of a state-wide restrictive ordinance bill advancing this legislation session – barring any massive unforeseen changes to the state’s political, err, winds. (Please clap.)
11. Washoe County, Nevada – Trump’s Bureau of Land Management has opened another solar project in the desert up for public comment.
- NextEra’s Dodge Flat II solar project would produce 200 megawatts. BLM’s request for comment specifically asks for input under the federal historic preservation law, an archeological preservation statute focused on protecting potentially important artifacts buried underground.
12. Shasta County, California – The California Energy Commission this week held a public hearing on the ConnectGen Fountain Wind project, which we previously told you already has gotten a negative reaction from the panel’s staff.
- Shasta County, a rural Central Valley community featuring Heatmap Pro’s worst risk rating in the state, has rejected Fountain Wind twice and has its own website dedicated to opposing the project on predictable viewshed and property value concerns. Staff on the commission had their own issues with the environmental impacts of the project.
- A vote on Fountain Wind is expected in late July.
