Tough Times for Renewable Energy Projects
A look at the week’s biggest fights over wind and solar farms.
1. McIntosh County, Oklahoma – Say goodbye to the Canadian River wind project, we hardly knew thee.
- The TransAlta utility-scale wind facility was canceled mere days after we were first to report on the uprising in favor of a ban on new renewables in the state.
- Local residents had banded together against the project due to its close proximity to Lake Eufaula, a large reservoir. Opposition included representatives of the native Muscogee Tribe.
- TransAlta confirmed the project was dead in a statement to me last week after state politicians were first to declare its demise. On Monday, the company provided a statement in lieu of making someone available to speak with me: “The unfortunate decision to terminate the project was due to two primary reasons – challenges with land acquisition as well as ongoing uncertainty regarding grid interconnection.”
2. Allen County, Ohio – A utility-scale project caught in the crossfires over solar on farmland and local-vs-state conflicts now appears deceased, too.
- Attorneys representing Lightsource – the renewables division of bp plc – told the Ohio Supreme Court in a filing last Thursday that it was withdrawing from a protracted legal fight over the approval of Birch Solar, a 375 megawatt solar project proposed in northwest Ohio that would fuel operations for Amazon.
- “Appellant has elected to suspend further development of the solar facility,” attorneys for Lightsource stated in their filing.
- As we previously explained, the Birch Solar case could have decided the fate of all renewables in the state. The Ohio Power Siting Board rejected Birch Solar in 2022, citing local opposition to claim it was not in the public’s interest.
3. Albany County, Wyoming – We have a new “wind kills eagles” lawsuit to watch and it could derail a 252-megawatt project slated to be fully online next year.
- Two days before Christmas, Wyoming residents sued the Western Area Power Administrator and Energy Department for approving Repsol’s Rail Tie wind project, stating it would present an outsized threat to endangered bald eagles.
- The lawsuit seeks to invalidate permits and an interconnection approval provided to the project under the Biden administration, citing the National Environmental Policy Act.
- The individual Wyoming residents are joined in the lawsuit by a local conservationist group and archeological society. In addition, per the complaint, one of the Wyoming residents in the lawsuit – Michael Lockhart – is a longtime biologist who previously worked for more than three decades at the Fish and Wildlife Service and has personally researched harm to bald eagles from wind energy.
4. Martin County, Kentucky – I’ve been getting complaints we’re too much of a downer in this newsletter and should praise success stories. So here’s one: a solar farm in Kentucky on a former coal site.
- This week, a solar farm developed by Savion (a.k.a. Shell) just became operational. It’s a rare example of a solar project being greenlit in Kentucky, a state where we usually have nothing but bad news to report.
- I do however want to note my relative skepticism of the climate benefits in building this project. A lot of the power will go to Toyota via a virtual power plant purchase agreement in order to meet their climate pledges, at least on paper.
- We’ve also seen backlash when solar projects fuel companies, not homes, producing headlines like, “Kentucky’s newest solar farm is now active. Most of its power goes to Toyota.”
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Delaware, U.S. Wind is appealing a local regulator’s decision to reject a substation for offshore wind.
In Illinois, the Panther Grove 2 utility-scale wind project just cleared its county planning commission. The project is a joint venture between Enbridge and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
In North Dakota – the home state of Trump’s pick for Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum – Minnkota Power Cooperative and PRC Wind yesterday announced plans to develop a new 370-megawatt wind farm near the town of New Rockford.
In Texas, a subsidiary of Eni New Energy completed building a 200-megawatt battery storage facility just outside the southwestern city of Laredo.
In Nebraska, what would be one of the state’s largest utility-scale solar projects is facing an uphill climb with county regulators. Good luck, NextEra!
In New York and New Jersey, the cable landings for the Vineyard Mid-Atlantic offshore wind project are starting to receive federal review.
In Tennessee, a different NextEra solar project has a key county hearing scheduled for early February.
In Washington state, regulators have approved a 470-megawatt solar project in Benton County, which we’ve previously told you is home to its own massive fight over wind energy.
In California, residents are complaining to local media about a solar project potentially destroying native Joshua Trees.
In Massachusetts, the small city of Westfield is inching closer to restricting battery storage facilities in its limits.
