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Hotspots

A Fine Week For Solar, Bad For Everyone Else

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

Map of contested renewable energy projects.
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1. Magic Valley, Idaho – It’s never a dull day for the Lava Ridge wind project.

  • Trump’s executive order also put a moratorium on the wind project site and essentially invalidated its environmental review under Biden. As we’ve explained, the project got permits in the final days of the previous administration.
  • But opponents to the project – most notably Senator Jim Risch – got the president to turn this into a Keystone XL-style situation. Idaho Governor Brad Little yesterday issued an executive order instructing state regulators to comply with anything Trump’s folks do to stop the project, an executive order of his own he jokingly dubbed the “Gone With The Lava Ridge Wind Act.”
  • Lava Ridge has been crickets since Trump’s order and its developer Magic Valley Energy has not issued a public statement. The most recent statement available on their website is still about its permits being approved under Biden.
  • I’ve tried to get in touch with them via the most recently-listed media contact for the project all week over phone and email – most recently this afternoon – but have had no luck. (Amy, please call me back.)

2. Multiple counties, Ohio – Regulators in Ohio issued final decisions for two contested solar projects, clearing the way for one while all but stopping another.

  • Savion’s Clear Mountain Energy Center solar-plus-battery project in Clermont County, Ohio, was approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board last week.
  • But Samsung’s Richmond Solar project in Union County was rejected by the OPSB, citing local opposition to say it did not serve “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” The project would also include battery storage if constructed.
  • OPSB also denied a petition for a rehearing for NextEra’s Circleville Solar project in Pickaway County, which had previously had its approval denied by the regulator.

3. Pender County, North Carolina – A solar project that was rejected late last year by the North Carolina Court of Appeals will be reconsidered by the same court, after the Democrat vote that decided the case was replaced by a Republican.

  • At the end of last year, the appeals court ruled Coastal Pine Solar had failed to demonstrate a solar project it proposed in Pender County sufficiently complied with a local restrictive ordinance. The ruling was not split, but it seems the new composition of the court means there’ll be a second go at the case.

4. Lancaster County, Nebraska – in We have good news for solar in Nebraska, where county commissioners have approved a massive NextEra solar project.

  • Commissioners cleared the Panama Energy Center solar project despite considerable local activism opposing its development. They said the decision to approve it was only possible after at least some concessions to the concerns in the community, including a vegetation management plan.

5. Montgomery County, Alabama – Another solar project – Silicon Ranch – also got approval this past week from the local Board of Adjustments, meaning a Meta data center is now poised to receive renewable energy.

  • Activism against the project is quite pronounced, as we’ve been covering closely in The Fight. I’m anticipating a little more noise in the coming weeks about how to stop this project in spite of the local approval.

Here’s what else we’re watching ...

In Kansas, landowners are suing to stop a NextEra solar project in Jackson County.

In Oklahoma, a Woodside-backed hydrogen project has been paused citing the Trump administration’s changes in policy.

In Nevada, the Bureau of Land Management cleared the way for the Rough Hat solar project days before Joe Biden left office.

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Hotspots

Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
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1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

  • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
  • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
  • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

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Spotlight

Renewables Swept Up in Data Center Backlash

Just look at Virginia.

A data center.
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Solar and wind projects are getting swept up in the blowback to data center construction, presenting a risk to renewable energy companies who are hoping to ride the rise of AI in an otherwise difficult moment for the industry.

The American data center boom is going to demand an enormous amount of electricity and renewables developers believe much of it will come from solar and wind. But while these types of energy generation may be more easily constructed than, say, a fossil power plant, it doesn’t necessarily mean a connection to a data center will make a renewable project more popular. Not to mention data centers in rural areas face complaints that overlap with prominent arguments against solar and wind – like noise and impacts to water and farmland – which is leading to unfavorable outcomes for renewable energy developers more broadly when a community turns against a data center.

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Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

The Q&A subject.
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Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”

Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.

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