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Hotspots

A Battery Ban, Burning Man, and Lots More Yelling

The week’s biggest fights around renewable energy

Map of U.S.
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1. San Diego County, California – The battery backlash just got stronger after the city of Escondido, California, indefinitely banned permits to the entire sector in reaction to a battery fire last month.

  • Last week, the city council enacted a 45-day moratorium on permits to construction and operation of battery energy storage systems, or BESS. The moratorium will impact AES Corporation’s Seguro storage project, as well as at least one more pending project, according to staff testimony at the city council meeting on the matter.
  • But for AES and anyone else who hopes this ends quickly, some bad news: Staff also testified it’ll take much longer than 45 days to prepare a report outlining next steps due to the outstanding government workload – and that’ll just be the idea generation phase of the city’s response. A 10-month moratorium was discussed as a potential next step.
  • “I don’t think any of us up here are adamantly opposed to battery energy storage systems,” the city’s Republican mayor Dane White said at the meeting. “However, it has to be done the right way.”

2. Waldo County, Maine – The potential first floating offshore wind assembly site in America is now one step further in the permitting process, after Maine’s Department of Transportation released a pre-application alternatives analysis required for federal environmental reviews.

  • The Maine DOT report defends the selection of Sears Island for the project. We previously scooped that this decision has serious legal risks.
  • Nevertheless, the state believes that it’s a better site than Mack Point, an existing energy logistics port nearby. According to the report, the Mack Point alternative would cost more and “limit any future plans for growth.”
  • “[It] presents problematic design features that greatly reduce its operational functionality and effectively preclude its use,” the report stated.
  • This effectively begins the state and federal environmental permitting process for the Sears Island port project. On its end, the state is also preparing a broader draft environmental review.

3. Dickinson County, Kansas – This one county may be a bellwether for future problems in Kansas, a state with many existing wind farms — and even more potential — but also a lot of opposition.

  • Activists stormed a community meeting late last week on deciding whether to move forward with Enel Green Power’s 334-megawatts Hope Ridge wind farm. If county planners reject the project, it’ll potentially come with a two-year moratorium on wind. Enel has several operating wind farms in Kansas, including Diamond Vista, which is in the adjacent Marion County. (Marion’s got its own moratorium now, too).
  • Despite existing generation, Dickinson County is one of the riskier places in the United States for new renewable energy development, according to Heatmap Pro’s analytics, thanks to its demographic, economic, and geographic similarities to other opposed counties.
  • At the top of the meeting, Enel project developer Jon Beck laid out a laundry list of reasons to build the project including jobs and tax revenue. “This area has been really favorable for a lot of reasons, and that’s why we continue here,” Beck said.
  • But while some in attendance supported the development, lots of testimony opposing the project stretched the hearing beyond the five-hour mark. (Pray for me, I listened back to the tape).
  • There’s a follow-up meeting this week. And Enel clearly takes this development seriously, because they sent me a lengthy statement about the opposition to Hope Ridge.
  • “Throughout this process, we’ve worked to show the Dickinson County community that wind power has been a huge success story for Kansas, bringing billions of dollars in economic impact largely targeted to rural areas,” the statement read. “Our landowners and community partners at Diamond Vista, just down the road, have seen how our project has provided new jobs, better roads, and more local funding over the last six years.”
  • It continued: “We understand many people in Dickinson County have concerns, but we also have a lot of supporters in the county — including our landowners — who are counting on us to make the case for this project. We hope to earn the support of the Planning Commission this week."

4. Washoe County, Nevada – The company behind the Burning Man festival will be acquiring nearby geothermal energy leases, in a settlement resolving litigation that had the high-profile naturalist escape challenging access to a renewable energy resource.

  • Burning Man will purchase the leases from power company Ormat, which will then in turn help the festival organizations turn that land into a conservation area, according to an announcement of the settlement.
  • This may effectively kill Ormat’s geothermal exploration project in the area after local officials also revoked a crucial drilling permit.

Here’s what else we’re watching right now…

In North Carolina, the Kerr Lake Solar project proposed by Cypress Creek Renewables is facing its own apparent local onslaught at community meetings.

In California, Capstone and Eurowind Energy are seeking permission to build a long-duration battery storage facility in Alameda County.

In New Jersey, a coalition of shore towns and opposition groups fighting the EDF-Shell Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm have issued a new missive criticizing state financial benefits to the project.

In New York, the town of Oyster Bay looks like it’ll be extending its moratorium on BESS for at least another six months.

In Pennsylvania, a Pivot Energy solar farm also has some local organizing in the way.

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Spotlight

How the Tax Bill Is Empowering Anti-Renewables Activists

A war of attrition is now turning in opponents’ favor.

Massachusetts and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Library of Congress, Getty Images

A solar developer’s defeat in Massachusetts last week reveals just how much stronger project opponents are on the battlefield after the de facto repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Last week, solar developer PureSky pulled five projects under development around the western Massachusetts town of Shutesbury. PureSky’s facilities had been in the works for years and would together represent what the developer has claimed would be one of the state’s largest solar projects thus far. In a statement, the company laid blame on “broader policy and regulatory headwinds,” including the state’s existing renewables incentives not keeping pace with rising costs and “federal policy updates,” which PureSky said were “making it harder to finance projects like those proposed near Shutesbury.”

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Hotspots

The Midwest Is Becoming Even Tougher for Solar Projects

And more on the week’s most important conflicts around renewables.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Wells County, Indiana – One of the nation’s most at-risk solar projects may now be prompting a full on moratorium.

  • Late last week, this county was teed up to potentially advance a new restrictive solar ordinance that would’ve cut off zoning access for large-scale facilities. That’s obviously bad for developers. But it would’ve still allowed solar facilities up to 50 acres and grandfathered in projects that had previously signed agreements with local officials.
  • However, solar opponents swamped the county Area Planning Commission meeting to decide on the ordinance, turning it into an over four-hour display in which many requested in public comments to outright ban solar projects entirely without a grandfathering clause.
  • It’s clear part of the opposition is inflamed over the EDF Paddlefish Solar project, which we ranked last year as one of the nation’s top imperiled renewables facilities in progress. The project has already resulted in a moratorium in another county, Huntington.
  • Although the Paddlefish project is not unique in its risks, it is what we view as a bellwether for the future of solar development in farming communities, as the Fort Wayne-adjacent county is a picturesque display of many areas across the United States. Pro-renewables advocates have sought to tamp down opposition with tactics such as a direct text messaging campaign, which I previously scooped last week.
  • Yet despite the counter-communications, momentum is heading in the other direction. At the meeting, officials ultimately decided to punt a decision to next month so they could edit their draft ordinance to assuage aggrieved residents.
  • Also worth noting: anyone could see from Heatmap Pro data that this county would be an incredibly difficult fight for a solar developer. Despite a slim majority of local support for renewable energy, the county has a nearly 100% opposition risk rating, due in no small part to its large agricultural workforce and MAGA leanings.

2. Clark County, Ohio – Another Ohio county has significantly restricted renewable energy development, this time with big political implications.

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Q&A

How a Heatmap Reader Beat a Battery Storage Ban

A conversation with Jeff Seidman, a professor at Vassar College.

Jeffrey Seidman.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is with Jeff Seidman, a professor at Vassar College and an avid Heatmap News reader. Last week Seidman claimed a personal victory: he successfully led an effort to overturn a moratorium on battery storage development in the town of Poughkeepsie in Hudson Valley, New York. After reading a thread about the effort he posted to BlueSky, I reached out to chat about what my readers might learn from his endeavors – and how they could replicate them, should they want to.

The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

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