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Hotspots

Ocean City Floats an Offshore Lawsuit, Federal Preservationists Quit Lava Ridge, and More

Here are the most notable renewable energy conflicts over the past week.

Map of US.
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1. Worcester County, Maryland Ocean City is preparing to go to court “if necessary” to undo the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval last week of U.S. Wind’s Maryland Offshore Wind Project, town mayor Rick Meehan told me in a statement this week.

  • Meehan listed off a litany of requests before the town apparently will be comfortable with the project, including a review of Ocean City property values, an economic study on impacts to the local economy, and safety measures to address blade failures like what happened at Vineyard Wind. Ultimately the town wants the project relocated “further to the east, as we have been asking for the past seven and a half years.”
  • A lawsuit is definitely on the table but not guaranteed: “We will be meeting with our consultants and attorneys to discuss our next course of action. The last thing we want to do is go to court but we are prepared to do so if necessary to make sure that all environmental protection laws are complied with and that the safety and well-being of all our citizens [is] protected.”

2. Magic Valley, Idaho – The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be Idaho’s biggest wind farm. But it’s facing public outcry over the impacts it could have on a historic site for remembering the impact of World War II on Japanese residents in the United States.

  • If constructed, it would surround internment camps where Japanese people were forcibly detained by the American government during the war. Activists opposed to Lava Ridge say that constructing the project would impact the solace of the space, killing the somber vibe. GOP politicians have also seized on the public relations morass.
  • On Friday, the federal advisory council overseeing historic preservation law ended its consultation with regulators on the wind project, which is proposed by a subsidiary of LS Power.
  • The council cited a number of factors, including the inability to mitigate impacts to the site as well as the unwillingness of Idaho state historic site regulators to go along with consultation.
  • This has no apparent effect on project approval – at least not yet. Whether it’ll mean much will be up to the Bureau of Land Management, which takes into consideration the views of the advisory council in its decisions.

3. Kossuth County, Iowa – Iowa’s largest county – Kossuth – is in the process of approving a nine-month moratorium on large-scale solar development.

  • Kossuth is already home to considerable renewable energy, including large wind farms operated by Invenergy and EDF Renewables.
  • Anxiety generally is bubbling in Kossuth over an outgrowth of various energy projects aimed at decarbonization and the county is also involved in opposing the Summit Carbon Pipeline.
  • County officials recently met with a researcher at Iowa State conducting federally-funded research of how solar could be deployed at the local level, per media reports.

Here’s a few more hotspots I’m watching…

  • In Indiana, Aypa Power’s attempts to build a solar farm in Madison, Indiana have hit a snag with the city council voting against the project.
  • Also in Iowa, opposition to an Apex Clean Energy wind farm could lead to a new county ordinance against wind.
  • In New York, the town of Springfield is scheduled to meet Monday on a proposed temporary wind moratorium spurred by New Leaf Energy wind project.
  • In Ohio, Whirlpool Corp. is hitting local snags as it tries to build three wind turbines.
  • In Oregon, an 11-acre solar farm from Shoestring Solar LLC was greenlit by the small town of Riddle in spite of local dissent from its would-be neighbors.

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Hotspots

Renewables at War in the Worcesters

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

The United States.
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1. Worcester County, Massachusetts – The town of Oakham is piping mad about battery energy storage.

  • A Rhynland Energy BESS facility filed a request with Massachusetts regulators in April to override longstanding local reservations against battery storage, dating back to a previous project fight from 2022. Local conservative organizations have been amplifying opposition to the project.
  • Rhyland may be able to sidestep Oakham’s opposition thanks to a new permitting law providing for exemptions from local restrictions, a la Michigan and other “primacy” states.

2. Worcester County, Maryland – A different drama is going down in a different Worcester County on Maryland’s eastern shore, where fishing communities are rejecting financial compensation from U.S. Wind tied to MarWin, its offshore project.

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Q&A

The Most Pressing Question for Energy Developers After the House’s IRA Cuts

A conversation with Heather Cooper, a tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery, about the construction rules in the tax bill.

The Q & A subject photo.
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This week I had the privilege of speaking with Heather Cooper, a tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery who is consulting with renewables developers on how to handle the likelihood of an Inflation Reduction Act repeal in Congress. As you are probably well aware, the legislation that passed the House earlier this week would all but demolish the IRA’s electricity investment and production tax credits that have supercharged solar and wind development in the U.S., including a sharp cut-off for qualifying that requires beginning construction by a date shortly after the bill’s enactment.

I wanted to talk to Heather about whether there was any way for developers to creatively move forward and qualify for the construction aspect of the credits’ design. Here’s an abridged version of our conversation, which happened shortly after the legislation passed the House Thursday morning.

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Spotlight

Virginia Counties Clamp Down on Solar Projects

How well-organized opposition is killing renewable energy in a state that’s desperate for power

Virginia and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Commonwealth of Virginia is clamping down on solar farms.

At least 39 counties in Virginia – 41% of all the state’s counties – now have some form of restriction on solar development, according to a new analysis of Heatmap Pro data. Many of these counties adopted ordinances significantly reducing how much land can be used and capping the total acreage of land allowed for solar projects. Some have gone further by banning new solar facilities altogether.

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