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Hotspots

Bad News for Agrivoltaics in Ohio

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

Map of renewable energy conflicts.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.

  • County officials this week issued a public notice encouraging all residents to consider the economic impacts of taking farmland out of use to build solar farms.
  • “The Queen Anne’s County Commissioners are concerned that large-scale conversion of farmland to solar energy facilities may impact the long-term viability of agriculture in the county and surrounding region,” read the notice, which told anyone approached by a solar company about their land to immediately consult an attorney and think about these “key considerations.”
  • “As more farmland is transitioned to solar use, the demand for these agricultural support services diminishes. If enough land is taken out of production, it could create serious challenges for those who wish to continue farming.”
  • It’s not immediately clear whether this was related to a specific project or an overall rise in renewables development that’s happening in the county. But there’s a clear trend going on. Officials said in an accompanying press release that officials in neighboring Caroline County sent a similar notice to property owners. And it seems Worcester County did something similar last month.

2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.

  • The staff report states: “Opposition to the project has been long-standing and unwavering, which is a strong measure of the local opposition to the project. While some local opposition is not uncommon in many power generation siting projects, when observing and documenting considerable opposition filed in this docket, staff recognizes that in this proceeding the opposition has been especially prominent and overwhelmingly one-sided from the local government agencies.”
  • This rejection is particularly striking as Open Road Renewables held multiple listening sessions for the surrounding community, modified its scope in light of the feedback, and claimed that 80% of public comments on the project were supportive. (Heatmap Pro, meanwhile, has Logan in the 99th percentile of the riskiest counties in America to build a clean energy project.)
  • What comes next for Grange Solar? The OPSB will ultimately have to vote on whether to side with its staff, though it rarely votes against. Open Road Renewables will then have the right to appeal this project. It feels unlikely that it’ll meet the company’s 2026 construction start plan.

3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.

  • At a county commission hearing this week, Bandera Commissioner Jack Moseley told a room of anti-solar residents that even though he wanted to stop the project, there was no role for him to do so. That’s because, as we explained in our deep dive on Rio Lago, Texas’ state laws are quite weak on local control around solar.
  • “I don’t want it here. I don’t think any of these commissioners want it here, and I don’t think there’s anyone in this room that wants it here. But, we the County cannot stop it,” Moseley said, according to local news outlet Bandera Bulletin.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.

In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.

In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.

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Hotspots

Fighting NIMBYism with Cash and State Overrides

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

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Jefferson County, New York – Two solar projects have been stymied by a new moratorium in the small rural town of Lyme in upstate New York.

  • Lyme passed the solar moratorium earlier this week in response to AES’ Riverside and Bay Breeze solar projects and it’ll remain in place at least through October. Riverside had been approved already by state regulators, circumventing local concerns, but may reportedly still need to be relocated or modified due to the moratorium.
  • Notably, opposition in the New York town has been fomented by a small chapter of Citizens for Responsible Solar, the anti-solar umbrella organization we wrote about in our profile of Virginia renewables fights last month.

2. Sussex County, Delaware – The Delaware legislature is intervening after Sussex County rejected the substation for the offshore MarWin wind project.

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Q&A

Has Solar Done This Before?

A conversation with Robb Jetty, CEO of REC Solar, about how the developer is navigating an uncertain environment.

Robb Jetty.
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This week I chatted with REC Solar CEO Robb Jetty, who reached out to me through his team after I asked for public thoughts from renewables developers about their uncertain futures given all the action in Congress around the Inflation Reduction Act. Jetty had a more optimistic tone than I’ve heard from other folks, partially because of the structure of his business – which is actually why I wanted to include his feelings in this week’s otherwise quite gloomy newsletter.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. Shall we?

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Spotlight

Trump’s Onshore Wind Pause Is Still On

Six months in, federal agencies are still refusing to grant crucial permits to wind developers.

Donald Trump and a wind turbine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Federal agencies are still refusing to process permit applications for onshore wind energy facilities nearly six months into the Trump administration, putting billions in energy infrastructure investments at risk.

On Trump’s first day in office, he issued two executive orders threatening the wind energy industry – one halting solar and wind approvals for 60 days and another commanding agencies to “not issue new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases or loans” for all wind projects until the completion of a new governmental review of the entire industry. As we were first to report, the solar pause was lifted in March and multiple solar projects have since been approved by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, I learned in March that at least some transmission for wind farms sited on private lands may have a shot at getting federal permits, so it was unclear if some arms of the government might let wind projects proceed.

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