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Hotspots

The Renewable Energy Project Trump Might Kill on Day 1

And more news on the biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

Map.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Magic Valley, Idaho – Sen. Jim Risch, one of the state’s loudest opponents of the Lava Ridge wind farm, said he believes Donald Trump will stop the project on Day 1.

  • In a newly-aired interview with TV outlet KTVB, Risch said the matter has been presented to the incoming president and that the proposal from LS Energy would be targeted by an order similar to Biden’s stopping the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
  • “When Biden took office, he walked in there [and] signed an executive order and that was the end of the Keystone pipeline. When Donald Trump walks into that president’s room, waiting for him is going to be a keystone pipeline-like executive order that says Lava Ridge ain’t no more.”
  • Lava Ridge has faced fierce backlash for a long time, for cultural and environmental reasons. That’s why we at Heatmap put it at the very top of our list of 10 at-risk projects to watch in the energy transition.
  • The Bureau of Land Management released a federal environmental review for Lava Ridge in June and it sliced the project’s scope in half, from 400 turbines to a little north of 200. The next and final step would be a record of decision formally approving it but it’s unclear when – or if – the record of decision for the wind project may be released before Trump leaves office.
  • Keep an eye out for more reporting on this potential move.

2. Hardin County, Kentucky – Lightsource, a subsidiary of bp, is going to the mat against a chapter of prominent anti-renewables network Citizens for Responsible Solar over a project in the small Kentucky city of Elizabethtown.

  • Lightsource is vying to build the 128-megawatt Telesto solar farm in Hardin despite a planning commission that is hostile to solar. Their apparent solution? Build it entirely on private land owned by individuals requesting annexations from their city government.
  • Telesto’s backers have tried a charm offensive that’s included local media interviews and selected local donations.
  • But right now I’m skeptical of the project’s odds in the short term for two reasons: city administrative staff have recommended against the annexation and Citizens for Responsible Solar is mobilizing its members.
  • “URGENT PLEA! We need to fill the room,” Hardin County Citizens for Responsible Solar posted to Facebook this week.
  • A decision on annexation by the city council is expected as soon as next week.

3. Allegany County, New York – I’m keeping close tabs on a new solar-farmland fight in upstate New York between a plant nursery and a 3.7 megawatt SolAmerica solar farm.

  • The small town of Amity has approved the project. And until now, Allegany County has been receiving new solar farms with little backlash.
  • But its location offers a sympathetic picture. It’s close to a small business – and overlapping with prime farmland. So it is drawing attention from columnists and its county legislator, Gretchen Hanchett, who weighed in yesterday asking local politicians to “balance the interests of property owners on both sides.”
  • This is the kind of political momentum that has led to new county-level restrictions in the past, so now Allegany’s on ordinance watch. Hanchett told a farmer in a county legislature meeting in August that they “have the support of this legislature in trying to find solutions” to solar and farmland conflicts.
  • “There’s a lot to learn in protecting our food supply and our small farmers,” Hanchett said, per meeting minutes from the gathering.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on…

In Indiana, a Cobia Solar project that would use 7,000 acres seems to face an uphill battle to local permits.

In Maryland, the county of Dorchester is enacting new restrictions on solar development after facing initial opposition from the Solar Energy Industries Association and RWE Clean Energy.

In Virginia, planners in South Boston have recommended rejecting a 10 megawatt solar and storage project proposed by Cenergy Power.

In Missouri, an Evergy solar farm proposed at a Kansas City airport is taking much longer than initially anticipated per press reports.

In New Jersey, anti-wind activists are adopting a new strategy to kill the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm: forcing the state bureaucracy into a new cost-benefit analysis.

In Oregon, anti-offshore wind activists are celebrating Donald Trump’s win at the ballot box.

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Spotlight

How a Tiny Community Blocked Battery Storage in Over Half of Los Angeles County

Much of California’s biggest county is now off limits to energy storage.

Wildfire and battery storage.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

Residents of a tiny unincorporated community outside of Los Angeles have trounced a giant battery project in court — and in the process seem to have blocked energy storage projects in more than half of L.A. County, the biggest county in California.

A band of frustrated homeowners and businesses have for years aggressively fought a Hecate battery storage project proposed in Acton, California, a rural unincorporated community of about 7,000 residents, miles east of the L.A. metro area. As I wrote in my first feature for The Fight over a year ago, this effort was largely motivated by concerns about Acton as a high wildfire risk area. Residents worried that in the event of a large fire, a major battery installation would make an already difficult emergency response situation more dangerous. Acton leaders expressly opposed the project in deliberations before L.A. County planning officials, arguing that BESS facilities in general were not allowed under the existing zoning code in unincorporated areas.

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Hotspots

A Hawk Headache for Washington’s Biggest Wind Farm

And more of the week’s top news about renewable energy conflicts.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Benton County, Washington – A state permitting board has overridden Governor Bob Ferguson to limit the size of what would’ve been Washington’s largest wind project over concerns about hawks.

  • In a unanimous decision targeting Horse Heaven Wind Farm, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council determined that no turbines could be built within two miles of any potential nests for ferruginous hawks, a bird species considered endangered by the state. It’s unclear how many turbines at Horse Heaven will be impacted but reports indicate at least roughly 40 turbines – approximately 20% of a project with a 72,000-acre development area.
  • Concerns about bird deaths and nest disruptions have been a primary point of contention against Horse Heaven specifically, cited by the local Yakama Nation as well as raised by homeowners concerned about viewsheds. As we told you last year, these project opponents as well as Benton County are contesting the project’s previous state approval in court. In July, that battle escalated to the Washington Supreme Court, where a decision is pending on whether to let the challenge proceed to trial.

2. Adams County, Colorado – This is a new one: Solar project opponents here are making calls to residents impersonating the developer to collect payments.

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Q&A

Trump Cuts Solar Industry’s Experiments to Win Hearts and Minds

A conversation with David Gahl of SI2

The Fight Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week I spoke with David Gahl, executive director of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute, or SI2, which is the Solar Energy Industries Association’s independent industry research arm. Usually I’d chat with Gahl about the many different studies and social science efforts they undertake to try and better understand siting conflicts in the U.S.. But SI2 reached out first this time, hoping to talk about how all of that work could be undermined by the Trump administration’s grant funding cuts tied to the government shutdown. (The Energy Department did not immediately get back to me with a request for comment for this story, citing the shutdown.)

The following conversation was edited lightly for clarity.

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