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Hotspots

Empire Wind in the Crosshairs

And more of the week’s biggest renewable energy fights.

Renewable energy conflicts across the country.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Bristol County, Massachusetts – The state of Massachusetts is abandoning plans to build an offshore wind research center in New Bedford, a fishing town that has also hosted protests against Vineyard Wind.

  • According to media reports, a local attorney gathered more than 260 signatures against the project’s proposed location in New Bedford and municipal elected leaders spoke out against it.
  • This led the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a state entity planning the facility, to fold its plans and vote to reallocate all of the money to an “initiative” instead that will use existing buildings in the area. It’s unclear as of now what that will look like.

2. Long Island, New York – Speaking of offshore wind woes, the anti-wind activist movement is now circling Empire Wind and asking President Donald Trump to rescind the EPA air permit to the Equinor offshore project.

  • Two prominent anti-offshore wind organizations – Save the East Coast and Protect our Coast-Long Island – announced yesterday in a press release posted to Facebook that they were petitioning the EPA to take the permit away, just like it did earlier this month with the Atlantic Shores project off the coast of New Jersey.
  • Activists have also asked EPA to get rid of air permits for New England Wind and Vineyard Wind, by the way. We’ll be watching their documents closely.

3. Fayette County, Pennsylvania – This sought-after county for solar development appears to be on the precipice of enacting a sweeping 500-foot property setback requirement.

  • The ordinance would apply to all towns in the county that do not already have a zoning ordinance for solar energy, which is the vast majority. Bear Peak Power, a developer operating in the county, is reportedly opposing the ordinance over a shortened permitting timeline.

4. Tippecanoe County, Indiana – Solar developer Geenex is beginning what’ll likely be a tense battle to win special zoning approval for a large utility-scale solar project in an area that already is subject to a restrictive setback ordinance.

5. Jefferson County, Wisconsin – We’re about to get a glimpse of whether Wisconsin can be as difficult a battleground for large-scale solar in rural areas as Ohio.

  • The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin recently found a state environmental impact statement for Ranger Power’s 180-megawatt Whitewater Solar project in Jefferson and Walworth County was “not required.” If the commission does not reconsider its decision, state permits are all but guaranteed.
  • This has sent opponents of the project into a tizzy. “Friends please help,” reads a new page on the website for Stop Whitewater Solar, a local organization led by disgruntled residents nearby the project area. The group is seeking comments to request an EIS.
  • I’m not convinced Stop Whitewater Solar will achieve what its name states though. A Change.org petition against the project created by someone involved in the group has received less than two dozen signatures.

6. Routt County, Colorado – We have our first-ever entry of Hotspots from Colorado, thanks to a zoning snafu.

  • Trapper Solar, an RWE subsidiary, has seen its proposal to build the largest solar project in the county stalled after Routt officials passed a new zoning code apparently days after the developer’s application was filed. The zoning code isn’t renewables-specific, but included a litany of new environmental mitigation requirements for development generally.
  • This wasn't entirely unexpected. Despite Routt’s overwhelmingly Democratic politics, Heatmap Pro gives it an above-average risk profile, thanks to its affluence, wealth of protected lands, and a workforce centered around skiing and tourism.

7. Fannin County, Texas – County commissioners here are now forming a joint planning committee with the city of Savoy, where we told you residents fearful after the Moss Landing battery fire are trying to stop an Engie storage facility from being built.

  • The decision was prompted by the battery storage fight. It’s unclear if the committee’s formation can lead to new impediments to development here, because Texas municipalities have far less control over development than towns and cities in other states.

8. Fresno County, California – The Moss Landing fire isn’t stopping Gov. Gavin Newsom from expediting new battery storage project permits.

  • Newsom last week issued a legal certification protecting against judicial challenges for a 300-megawatt storage facility in the city of Fresno proposed by Cornucopia Hybrid.
  • The certification specifically means any court challenge will need to be decided within 270 days “to the extent feasible,” according to the governor’s office. This makes me wonder – are they predicting legal action?

9. Alaska – How do you kill a battery project if no one’s around to protest? Take away its money… and that’s why my mind is on the Kodiak State.

  • Today, the climate news outlet Heated reported a secret “hit list” inside of the Trump administration calls to rescind $50 million promised to Westinghouse for a pumped thermal energy storage project intended to help the small community of Healy rely entirely on wind energy generation. It’s one of the emptiest regions of the country.

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Spotlight

How a Giant Solar Farm Flopped in Rural Texas

Amarillo-area residents successfully beat back a $600 million project from Xcel Energy that would have provided useful tax revenue.

Texas and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Power giant Xcel Energy just suffered a major public relations flap in the Texas Panhandle, scrubbing plans for a solar project amidst harsh backlash from local residents.

On Friday, Xcel Energy withdrew plans to build a $600 million solar project right outside of Rolling Hills, a small, relatively isolated residential neighborhood just north of the city of Amarillo, Texas. The project was part of several solar farms it had proposed to the Texas Public Utilities Commission to meet the load growth created by the state’s AI data center boom. As we’ve covered in The Fight, Texas should’ve been an easier place to do this, and there were few if any legal obstacles standing in the way of the project, dubbed Oneida 2. It was sited on private lands, and Texas counties lack the sort of authority to veto projects you’re used to seeing in, say, Ohio or California.

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Hotspots

A Data Center Is Dead, Long Live a Solar Farm

And more of the most important news about renewable projects fighting it out this week.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Racine County, Wisconsin – Microsoft is scrapping plans for a data center after fierce opposition from a host community in Wisconsin.

  • The town of Caledonia was teed up to approve land rezoning for the facility, which would’ve been Microsoft’s third data center in the state. Dubbed “Project Nova,” the data center would have sat near an existing We Energies natural gas power plant.
  • After considerable pushback at community meetings, the tech giant announced Friday that it would either give up on the project or relocate it elsewhere to avoid more fervent opposition.
  • “While we have decided not to proceed with this particular site, we remain fully committed to investing in Southeast Wisconsin. We view this as a healthy step toward building a project that aligns with community priorities and supports shared goals,” Microsoft said in a statement published to its website, adding that it will attempt to “identify a site that supports both community priorities and our long-term development objectives.”
  • A review of the project opponents’ PR materials shows their campaign centered on three key themes: the risk of higher electricity bills, environmental impacts of construction and traffic, and a lack of clarity around how data centers could be a public good. Activists also frequently compared Project Nova to a now-infamous failed project in Wisconsin from the Chinese tech manufacturer Foxconn.

2. Rockingham County, Virginia – Another day, another chokepoint in Dominion Energy’s effort to build more solar energy to power surging load growth in the state, this time in the quaint town of Timberville.

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Q&A

How the AI Boom Could Come Back Around for Natural Gas

A conversation with Enchanted Rock’s Joel Yu.

The Fight Q & A subject.
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This week’s chat was with Joel Yu, senior vice president for policy and external affairs at the data center micro-grid services company Enchanted Rock. Now, Enchanted Rock does work I usually don’t elevate in The Fight – gas-power tracking – but I wanted to talk to him about how conflicts over renewable energy are affecting his business, too. You see, when you talk to solar or wind developers about the potential downsides in this difficult economic environment, they’re willing to be candid … but only to a certain extent. As I expected, someone like Yu who is separated enough from the heartburn that is the Trump administration’s anti-renewables agenda was able to give me a sober truth: Land use and conflicts over siting are going to advantage fossil fuels in at least some cases.

The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

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