Battery Fears Hit Nebraska and New York

1. Cass County, Nebraska — Local permits for a 260+ megawatt NextEra solar project have been stalled for at least two months, we can exclusively report.

• The Cass County Planning Commission held a special meeting Monday on NextEra’s application for the project. Meeting minutes aren’t public yet and a record of the gathering may not be public until at least next week, but staff in the county zoning office confirmed with me on the phone that commissioners tabled the application for 60 days.
• Why was it tabled? According to one anti-NextEra attendee’s post to Facebook, it was NextEra’s desire to add battery storage to the project. “Voters and commission members jumped all over him about [how] unsafe these lithium ion batteries are and, if they catch on fire, how they are nearly impossible to extinguish,” wrote Dave Begley of Omaha, Nebraska. “The Commission tabled the application over concerns about batteries.”
• Cass County has restricted solar development before, passing an ordinance in 2023 with property distance requirements. A NextEra project developer told Energy News Network last year 40%-50% of the acreage it has leased for the project would be for setbacks from roads, drainage, and trees.
• This upper-middle class, white, and conservative community outside of Omaha is also predicted to be a relatively difficult place to build a renewable energy project, based on Heatmap Pro’s modeling of polling, demographic, and economic data. Strong opposition to battery storage, in particular, was likely:

Battery opinion modeling in Cass County, Nebraska.Heatmap Pro Screenshot

• NextEra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

2. Westchester County, N.Y. — Speaking of battery blues, a New York state senate race has become imbued with the politics surrounding energy storage, demonstrating how politicians are trying to take advantage of fire fears.

• Gina Arena, a Republican running for a state senate seat in the Hudson Valley, on Monday published an open letter calling for East Point Energy to abandon its plans for a large lithium battery plant in the district.
• “If the lithium battery farm were to be built, it would constitute an extraordinary danger to thousands of nearby residents who would have to shelter in place for days in the event of a fire,” she wrote.
• This is part of a growing trend I’m observing in local and state politicians leveraging adverse reactions to renewables projects for their own gain. Such is the case for the California battery project we covered in our first edition of The Fight, and the Oak Run agri-voltaic project we featured last week.
• Whether these campaigns succeed depends on many factors including political party and region. But these gambits can be influential.
• Case in point: The example of Nick Newport, a local pizza shop owner who E&E News reported this week recently won a GOP primary for a Georgia county board of commissioners seat in part on opposition to water access for a Hyundai EV plant.

3. Georgetown County, S.C. — Sunrise Renewables is reportedly delaying a request for zoning approval to build two solar farms in the county amidst blossoming local opposition to development.

• The solar farms were supposed to receive a public hearing in the Georgetown County planning commission last week but it was postponed after the county commission got “scores of letters and emails” against development, according to the Coastal Observer, a local paper in South Carolina.
• The investment firm behind Sunrise Renewables is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which also owns 50% of the Vineyard offshore wind project.

4. Carroll County, Maryland — Carroll County Commissioners are poised today to oppose a solar farm in the town of Sykesville before the state Public Service Commission on the grounds it conflicts with a county ban on farmland development.

• “The board maintains its position of protecting owner property rights, local control, land use and permitting authority and the importance of renewable energy while preserving the county’s rich agricultural farmland,” the commissioners said in a press release ahead of the PSC meeting.

5. Stark County, Ohio — The Ohio Power Siting Board last week held two days of testimony-laden hearings in its case over Stark Solar, a 150-megawatt solar farm with battery storage being developed by a subsidiary of Samsung.

• The OPSB recommended in July to deny the project citing local opposition.
• It’s another classic solar vs. farmland situation.

Here’s what else I’m watching…

• In Iowa, Adams County is preparing to update its ordinance against wind projects.
• In Maine, the town of Trenton has extended a solar moratorium for 180 days.
• In New York, the town of Somerset has extended its moratorium on battery storage and the town of Duanesburg is extending its anti-battery and wind ordinance.
• In Virginia, Halifax County is apparently slow in processing solar project applications despite lifting its moratorium.