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Hotspots

Renewables Developers Get Sweaty Palms Across America

Here are the week’s top conflicts around clean energy in the U.S.

Map of renewable energy conflicts.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Barnstable County, Massachusetts – The SouthCoast offshore wind project will now be delayed for at least four years, developer Ocean Winds said on Friday, confirming my previous reporting that projects Biden seemed to fully approve were still at risk from Trump.

  • Biden’s Interior Department had said in December the SouthCoast project was “approved.” But according to this federal permitting data clearinghouse, the project still needs clearances from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers. We previously reported the Army Corps of Engineers had all but frozen wetlands permitting for wind projects. Jury’s out on whether that has changed.

2. Albany County, New York – A judge in this county has cast a cloud over tax abatement calculations for essentially all solar and wind projects in the state.

  • In a ruling this week, Albany Supreme Court judge Joshua Farrell ruled the implementation of a recent state law giving tax incentives to solar and wind developers was unconstitutional. In his opinion, Farrell wrote the state legislature had exceeded its powers and failed to sufficiently define how renewable energy credits, or RECs, and investment tax credits should be used.
  • This will create incredible uncertainty for developers across the state, according to an analysis of the ruling published yesterday by law firm Hodgkins Russ. Their takeaway? It’s likely New York Attorney General Letiticia James appeals the ruling and considers it stayed until the appeal can be processed, but this will hardly provide comfort to industry, which is already reeling from the Trump effect.
  • “On the merits,” the law firm stated, “the decision creates continued uncertainty over how to value and assess renewable energy projects. Now, there is increased risk and exposure to both renewable energy developers, who may have higher assessments and higher real property taxes for their projects, and local taxing jurisdictions who will be forced to expend legal fees defending assessment challenges.”

3. Greene County, North Carolina – No more new solar farms here, at least for now.

  • This county enacted a moratorium this week on new solar farm permits for two years pending the completion of a solar zoning ordinance. It’s a quick step-change from when county officials approved a special use permit for a NextEra last month. Then again, the backlash to that project was so loud it forced the county to issue a public statement telling residents it had no involvement itself in the project or solicit its construction.

4. Logan County, Ohio – Sayonara, Grange Solar.

  • Open Road Renewables has canceled the Grange Solar agrivoltaics project amid local opposition and a recent recommendation from staff on the Ohio Power Siting Board to reject crucial permits.

5. Fannin County, Texas – The battery backlash we’ve warned you is on the horizon has spread to the small town of Savoy, north of Dallas, where residents are protesting en masse against an Engie battery storage project under construction.

  • Like elsewhere in Texas, it’s unclear there’s any way for the project to be stopped by local opposition. But I anticipate that as more cases of Texas battery fights make headlines, it carries the risk of state legislation or other forms of policy response from Texas regulators.

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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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Hotspots

A New York Town Bans Both Renewable Energy And Data Centers

And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.

  • Chautauqua, a vacation town in southern New York, has now reportedly issued a one-year moratorium on wind projects – though it’s not entirely obvious whether a wind project is in active development within its boundaries, and town officials have confessed none are being planned as of now.
  • Apparently, per local press, this temporary ban is tied to a broader effort to update the town’s overall land use plan to “manage renewable energy and other emerging high-impact uses” – and will lead to an ordinance that restricts data centers as well as solar and wind projects.
  • I anticipate this strategy where towns update land use plans to target data centers and renewables at the same time will be a lasting trend.

2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.

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Spotlight

The Wind Projects Breaking the Wyoming GOP

It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.

At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.

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