The Fight

Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Hotspots

Agri-Voltaics Anguish, Offshore Wind Wailing

And more of the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.

Map.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Douglas County, Kansas – A legal headache is consuming Kansas Sky Energy Center, a 159-megawatt solar project proposed by Savion and Invenergy… and showcasing how “agri-voltaics” may not be the community engagement panacea some in industry are praying for, according to legal filings reviewed by Heatmap.

  • The Douglas Board of County Commissioners approved the project earlier this year unanimously in spite of a petition from nearly property owners to oppose the project. After that, landowners and the small neighboring community of Grant Township sued the county commissioners to invalidate the approval.
  • The litigation accuses the Board Chair Karen Willey of essentially orchestrating the approval and the solar project’s agri-voltaics plans without meaningful local consultation, per the most recent amended complaint filed by the aggrieved community members.
  • The complaint gets ugly real fast, citing texts and emails to allege some sort of conspiracy between Willey, Savion employees, and The Nature Conservancy, the environmental nonprofit, which was brought in to assist with the agri-voltaics plans.
  • “Commissioner Karen Willey, a well-known opponent of production farming and a critic of the accepted farming principles that enable Kansas farmers to feed the world,” states the complaint filed in August, “orchestrated the request and approval process to fulfill her pre-set personal agenda.”
  • Willey and the rest of the board have denied all of the wrongdoing alleged in the suit and are fighting it vigorously.
  • Irrespective of the merits, this one’s a headache, and must be eating up lots of time and money for developers and the local government. Yesterday a federal judge sent the case to state court after a prolonged fight over jurisdiction.
  • This can be a fraught place to develop solar, as NextEra Energy has experienced with its West Gardner solar project.

2. Worcester County, Maryland – We finally get to see the contours of the legal strategy against the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, after Ocean City and surrounding local business and government officials filed their lawsuit last week.

  • In their complaint, opponents primarily cite environmental protection laws and issues like “segmenting” environmental impacts that are “cumulative” under NEPA (i.e. looking at them separately instead of together).
  • The lawsuit also argues the government failed to properly consider the impacts of climate change on the wind project.
  • Ocean City and its allies are represented in the case by locally-based attorney Bruce Bight of the D.C. law firm Marzulla, which is also representing fishermen fighting offshore wind in New England.

3. Barnstable County, Massachusetts – Another blow to offshore wind came Friday in the coastal town of Barnstable where leaders voted to oppose cable landings for Avangrid’s New England Wind 2 project.

  • The town’s non-binding resolution opposing the cable landings came after a citizens group waged a pressure campaign – including litigation – to make the town ditch a host community agreement with Avangrid.
  • Avangrid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

3. Somewhere near Houston, Texas – The small city of Katy rejected a 500-megawatt battery storage project proposed by Ochoa Energy despite the community struggling with regular blackouts.

  • During the city council’s meeting last week on the project, city councilors discussed crafting their own anti-storage moratorium and cited other communities with new restrictions, including specifically Escondido, California.
  • The rejection was at least partially based on fear. Katy City Councilor Gina Hicks said she personally supported construction but local opposition made it impossible for her to support the project as an elected representative.
  • The vote against Ochoa’s proposal came after an uproar at another recent public meeting on the project, per Hicks, who predicted “brownouts” and “blackouts” without the project.
  • “Just know that we as a community chose this and I will represent what the community wants versus what I feel is personally best for this decision,” she said.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on…

In Iowa, a county fighting the Worthwhile Wind farm proposed by Invenergy is asking outside legal counsel for help after a federal judge ruled the project could resume construction.

In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington city Linda Gorton testified against construction of a 40-megawatt solar farm proposed by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative.

In Massachusetts, a private non-profit that operates historic sites in Nantucket has withdrawn from the Vineyard Wind good neighbor agreement.

In Michigan, the tiny town of Groveland Township is trying to get a restrictive battery storage ordinance in place before a new state law curbing local control comes into effect. (Sorry you’re dealing with this one, Vesper Energy.)

In Virginia, Dominion Energy has sold a non-controlling 50% stake in Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind as public comments resume on the proposed project (which haven’t always been favorable).

This article is exclusively
for Heatmap Plus subscribers.

Go deeper inside the politics, projects, and personalities
shaping the energy transition.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Spotlight

Hydrogen Hubs Are Struggling. Why?

Explanations abound.

Hydrogen plant.
Shutterstock / Heatmap

Key projects for the Energy Department’s hydrogen hubs are dropping like flies. And it’s really not obvious why.

Three hubs DOE selected for potential federal support have lost projects that were linchpins. Industrial giant Fortescue is no longer publicly committing to a hydro-powered hydrogen production plant proposed in Washington state that was key to the Pacific Northwest hub. News of a pause at the project was previously reported, but the company notably declined to even say the project was still getting built when asked about it this week.

Keep reading...Show less
Policy Watch

Offshore Wind’s Sign of Resilience

And more of the week’s top policy news around renewable energy.

Wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Offshore wind lease win – Two companies, Avangrid and Invenergy, purchased four of the eight leases up for grabs yesterday at the first floating offshore wind sale in the Gulf of Maine, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

  • I’ve previously chronicled how offshore wind is particularly vulnerable to the whims of the federal government and how if Donald Trump wins the presidency again, the entire U.S. sector could grind to a shrieking halt.
  • That’s why, as my colleague Emily Pontecorvo noted, the fact any leases were purchased at all is a surprise sign that not all momentum has stalled ahead of this consequential election.
  • “The fact that two developers took the leap now rather than waiting for 2028 – which is when the next lease sale in the Gulf of Maine is scheduled – shows some level of confidence in the long-term prospects for the industry,” she writes.

2. Community benefit plans – The Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office is letting the public in on its community benefit agreements, publishing three plans for a wire harness plant in Texas, a solar-plus-storage project on tribal lands in California, and the revived Holtec Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.

Keep reading...Show less
Q&A

The CEO of GE Vernova Wants Less Talk, More Action

A conversation with Scott Strazik about NIMBYs, the Inflation Reduction Act, and manufacturing problems.

The CEO of GE Vernova Wants Less Talk, More Action

Last week at Greentown Labs’ startup summit in Boston I interviewed Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova, the energy equipment manufacturing arm of General Electric formerly known as GE Renewables and GE Power.

GE Vernova has been at the forefront of a tech and public relations crisis in the offshore wind sector after one of the blades it constructed for the Vineyard Wind farm collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean. Last week, the company reported it found more issues with blades and recorded $700 million in financial losses from offshore wind contracts largely tied to blade issues.

Keep reading...Show less