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Hotspots

Deathwatch for Atlantic Shores?

And more of the week’s top news in renewable energy fights.

Renewable energy fights across the country.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Atlantic County, New Jersey – The Atlantic Shores offshore wind project is on deathwatch.

  • Earlier today, Shell announced it would pull out of its 50-50 joint venture with EDF Renewables to develop the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project off the coast of New Jersey.
  • Atlantic Shores then sent us a statement unprompted, saying they’re “committed” to developing New Jersey’s first offshore wind site.
  • “Business plans, projects, portfolio projections and scopes evolve over time – and as expected for large, capital-intensive infrastructure projects like ours, our shareholders have always prepared long-term strategies that contemplate multiple scenarios that enable Atlantic Shores to reach its full potential,” the statement read.
  • It continued: “While we can’t comment on the views of shareholders, Atlantic Shores intends to continue progressing New Jersey’s first offshore wind project and our portfolio in compliance with our obligations to local, state and federal partners under existing leases and relevant permits.”
  • As we previously explained, we anticipate this project to face challenges to the legality of its permits and leases, as previewed by the Trump administration.

2. Waldo County, Maine – The Sears Island saga is moving to the state legislature, as a cadre of lawmakers push to block construction of a floating offshore wind turbine construction facility there before Trump leaves office.

  • As we previously explained, Sears Island – a bucolic recreation destination off the coast of Maine – is the state’s favored spot for building an assembly site for floating offshore wind turbines. Floating offshore wind is preferred by some Maine politicians, including Gov. Janet Mills, because it would reduce impacts to fisheries closer to the shoreline.
  • Despite Trump’s edict blocking offshore wind, Maine has a pathway to stay the course toward eventual development, because researchers have a lease to test more floating offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine. There’s a world where development of a construction port on Sears Island happens in tandem with that research.
  • However, we’re watching this risk to that pathway: a group of Republicans in the state legislature – joined by a Democratic lawmaker and a non-voting representative of the Passamaquoddy Tribe – have introduced a bill to permanently turn Sears Island into a conservation site, taking the island off the table for wind development.
  • Hindering offshore wind development overall might be the goal of the bill, which was introduced the day after Trump restricted all new offshore development Its lead author is state Rep. Reagan Paul, who has also called on the governor to stop all state spending on offshore wind. Paul was in D.C. for Trump’s inauguration celebrations.
  • It’s unclear whether the legislation stands a chance at becoming law. But it is clear some state Republicans are going to do what they can to stop the Sears Island wind port, which will matter if the state tries to get project permits under Trump.

3. San Luis Obispo County, California – The Moss Landing battery fire has sparked a new push for the state to slow approvals for BESS development. Unlike Sears Island, the push is being led by a Democratic lawmaker who has supported rapid climate action.

  • State assemblywoman Dawn Addis – who represents Moss Landing and communities impacted by the disaster – just introduced legislation that would remove battery storage facilities from the California Energy Commission’s opt-in certification program, effectively giving cities and counties much more control over BESS siting.
  • “I absolutely have been a champion, believe that we live in a climate crisis and have to have solutions,” Addis said at a press conference announcing the bill. “Along with those solutions, we have to have safety.”
  • This bill would give locals more control because the opt-in program lets companies ask the state to override concerns at the municipal level. It would also likely stop a Vistra Energy battery project in Morro Bay, where the company has been stonewalled and decided to go to the Commission instead.
  • It’s too early to tell whether the bill stands a chance at becoming law, but it’s clear the state is trying to reassure residents that BESS is safe. Earlier this week state regulators proposed updating their emergency response guidance for responding to BESS fires.
  • This is all despite the Moss Landing fire being tied to very unique circumstances.

4. Greene County, New York – A solar farm fight is testing whether the state of New York’s climate law can be used to override local opposition to renewables projects.

  • A mid-level appellate judge ruled this week that the state’s 2019 Climate Act provides a legal basis for the state to conclude construction of some new solar and wind projects are in the overall public interest.
  • The case surrounds a Freeport Solar project in the town of Athens, where the local zoning board rejected the project claiming it was not a “public necessity.” Athens has said they will now take the case to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court.

5. Fairfield County, Ohio – The Ohio Public Siting Board held a hearing on Tuesday to consider the environmental certificate for EDF Renewables’ Eastern Cottontail solar project.

6. Multnomah County, Oregon – A transmission line proposal known as the Harborton Reliability Project is facing hurdles in the city of Portland, where city planners are recommending the city reject plans to cut down forest to build it.

  • The recommendations pit the city’s permitting staff against utility Portland General Electric as well as the area’s member of Congress, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who endorsed the project.
  • A decision on whether city regulators will reject the project based on the recommendations is expected in early March, according to Axios Portland, who reports the decision may be appealed to the city council.

Here’s what else we’re watching ...

In Idaho, Ada County is drafting up a new restrictive ordinance related to renewables on farmland.

In Virginia, a Savion solar project in Nelson County is facing an uphill climb for local approvals.

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Spotlight

Data Centers Collide with Local Restrictions on Renewables

A review of Heatmap Pro data reveals a troubling new trend in data center development.

A data center and a backyard.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Data centers are being built in places that restrict renewable energy. There are significant implications for our future energy grid – but it’s unclear if this behavior will lead to tech companies eschewing renewables or finding novel ways to still meet their clean energy commitments.

In the previous edition of The Fight, I began chronicling the data center boom and a nascent backlash to it by talking about Google and what would’ve been its second data center in southern Indianapolis, if the city had not rejected it last Monday. As I learned about Google’s practices in Indiana, I focused on the company’s first project – a $2 billion facility in Fort Wayne, because it is being built in a county where officials have instituted a cumbersome restrictive ordinance on large-scale solar energy. The county commission recently voted to make the ordinance more restrictive, unanimously agreeing to institute a 1,000-foot setback to take effect in early November, pending final approval from the county’s planning commission.

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Hotspots

Feds Preparing Rule Likely Restricting Offshore Wind, Court Filing Says

And more on the week’s most important fights around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Ocean County, New Jersey – A Trump administration official said in a legal filing that the government is preparing to conduct a rulemaking that could restrict future offshore wind development and codify a view that could tie the hands of future presidential administrations.

  • In a court filing last Friday, Matthew Giacona – Trump’s principal deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management – laid out the federal government’s thoughts about re-doing the entire review process that went into approving the Atlantic Shores project. The filing was related to the agency’s effort to stay a lawsuit brought by anti-wind advocates that officials say is unnecessary because, well … Atlantic Shores is already kind of dead.
  • But the Giacona declaration went beyond this specific project. He laid out how in the Trump administration’s view, the Biden administration improperly weighed the impacts of the offshore wind industry when considering the government’s responsibilities for governing use of the Outer Continental Shelf, which is the range of oceanfront off the coastline that qualifies as U.S. waters. Giacona cited an Interior Department legal memo issued earlier this year that revoked Biden officials’ understanding of those legal responsibilities and, instead, put forward an interpretation of the agency’s role that results in a higher bar for approving offshore wind projects.
  • Per Giacona, not only will BOEM be reviewing past approvals under this new legal opinion, but it will also try and take some sort of action changing its responsibilities under federal regulation for approving projects in the Outer Continental Shelf. Enshrining this sort of legal interpretation into BOEM’s regulations would in theory have lasting implications for the agency even after the Trump 2.0 comes to a close.
  • “BOEM is currently beginning preparations for a rulemaking that will amend that provision of the regulations, consistent with M-37086 [the legal opinion],” Giacona stated. He did not elaborate on the timetable for this regulatory effort in the filing.

2. Prince William County, Virginia – The large liberal city of Manassas rejected a battery project over fire fears, indicating that post-Moss Landing, anxieties continue to pervade in communities across the country.

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Q&A

What Rural Republicans Say About Renewables

A conversation with Courtney Brady of Evergreen Action.

Courtney Brady.
Heatmap Illustration

This week I chatted with Courtney Brady, Midwest region deputy director for climate advocacy group Evergreen Action. Brady recently helped put together a report on rural support for renewables development, for which Evergreen Action partnered with the Private Property Rights Institute, a right-leaning advocacy group. Together, these two organizations conducted a series of interviews with self-identifying conservatives in Pennsylvania and Michigan focused on how and why GOP-leaning communities may be hesitant, reluctant, or outright hostile to solar or wind power.

What they found, Brady told me, was that politics mattered a lot less than an individual’s information diet. The conversation was incredibly informative, so I felt like it was worth sharing with all of you.

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