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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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Q&A

You, Too, Can Protect Solar Panels Against Hail

A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.

This week's interview subject.
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This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Hotspots

The Pro-Renewables Crowd Gets Riled Up

And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.

  • Activists came together on Earth Day to protest the Trump administration’s decision to issue a stop work order on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. It’s the most notable rally for offshore wind I’ve seen since September, when wind advocates protested offshore opponents at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island.
  • Esther Rosario, executive director of Climate Jobs New York, told me the rally was intended to focus on the jobs that will be impacted by halting construction and that about a hundred people were at the rally – “a good half of them” union members or representing their unions.
  • “I think it’s important that the elected officials that are in both the area and at the federal level understand the humans behind what it means to issue a stop-work order,” she said.

2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.

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Spotlight

How a Carbon Pipeline Is Turning Iowa Against Wind

Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.

Iowa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.

Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.

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