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Hotspots

Offshore Wind Is Off the Table in Oregon

And more of the week’s biggest conflicts in renewable energy development.

Map.
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1. Coos County, Oregon – We can confirm that opposition and waning industry interest have effectively killed the Beaver State’s first offshore wind lease sale.

  • Late Friday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management postponed an Oct. 15 lease sale for floating offshore wind citing “insufficient bidder interest” from only one of five companies identified as qualified to participate.
  • And we’ve learned there won’t be a retry any time soon: BOEM spokesman John Romero confirmed in an email that the agency “does not have a timeline for determining a future opportunity for a potential lease sale in Oregon.”
  • Shortly before the cancellation, Gov. Tina Kotek called for the lease sale to be nixed and pulled out of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s task force on Oregon’s offshore wind development after a chorus of concerns from coastal towns and tribes were echoed by the state’s two senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. All these elected officials are Democrats, by the way.
  • Last week, Mainstream Renewable Power Inc. told Oregon Public Broadcasting they’d no longer bid. Four other companies were qualified to bid: Avangrid Renewables, BlueFloat Energy, OW North America Ventures, and South Coast Energy Waters, a company backed by the CEO of solar developer NewSun.

2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Some good news for offshore wind as a counterbalance: the Atlantic Shores wind farm got its final federal approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management yesterday.

  • We expected this to happen, and we’ve previously explained that litigation will likely occur. But it’s still a major milestone. Even if Donald Trump wins, the project’s fate is now left for the courts to decide.
  • There’ll still be fights over the project. One of the potential host communities for the cables, Sea Girt, is seeing local opposition crop up and intervention from its congressman Chris Smith. But the matter has gotten safer for the developer.

3. Montgomery County, Alabama – In Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery, residents opposed to solar power are campaigning for Montgomery to enact a blanket ordinance banning permits and site development plans.

  • Their efforts have led the city council’s public works committee to study the matter. A study committee meeting on the proposal scheduled last week was derailed as Hurricane Helene began to make landfall without a new date.
  • Residents took to the Montgomery city council last night and again asked for the moratorium. Some council members seemed receptive to the concerns, but so far no dice for the activists.
  • Montgomery is home to several potential solar farms with promise for decarbonizing the Deep South, including projects being developed by Hecate Energy and Pinegate Renewables (not to be confused with Pine Gate Renewables, who we discuss below).

4. Litchfield County, Connecticut  The small New England city of Torrington, Connecticut doesn’t want any more solar panels.

  • Torrington’s mayor Elinor Carbone wrote the state requesting they consider rejecting a proposed solar installation opposed by some residents in a neighboring condominium. Visuals and deforestation seem to be the big concerns.
  • This comes from a municipality that only recently accepted battery storage and follows in the long tradition of Connecticut residents going back and forth on NIMBY vibes. (A decade ago they had banned wind entirely.)
  • And Torrington’s solar projects overall seem to suffer from grumpy neighbors. See: this Verogy project dealing with complaints about overgrown grass.

Here’s what else we’re watching …

In Arizona, the city of Maricopa is opposing a roughly 1,100 acre solar farm proposed by Hidden Valley Ranch Partners.

In California, the city of San Marcos may soon formally oppose AES Corporation’s Seguro battery storage project.

In Illinois, officials in Clinton County have extended their wind moratorium through at least the end of this year.

In Kentucky, Lexington County’s planning commission has recommended against allowing large-scale solar farms.

In Michigan, the city of Detroit has filed eminent domain lawsuits to procure properties for community solar, a development backed by DTE.

In Minnesota, the city of Hugo is taking another stab at allowing some solar development after initially backing restrictions.

In Pennsylvania, Wilson Solar has offered to reduce the size of an 80 MW solar farm to assuage residents’ concerns. Jury’s still out on if it’ll work.

In Texas, a federal judge has halted work on Pine Gate Renewables’ Bandera solar farm amid a legal battle with landowners.

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Hotspots

Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
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1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

  • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
  • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
  • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

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Spotlight

Renewables Swept Up in Data Center Backlash

Just look at Virginia.

A data center.
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Solar and wind projects are getting swept up in the blowback to data center construction, presenting a risk to renewable energy companies who are hoping to ride the rise of AI in an otherwise difficult moment for the industry.

The American data center boom is going to demand an enormous amount of electricity and renewables developers believe much of it will come from solar and wind. But while these types of energy generation may be more easily constructed than, say, a fossil power plant, it doesn’t necessarily mean a connection to a data center will make a renewable project more popular. Not to mention data centers in rural areas face complaints that overlap with prominent arguments against solar and wind – like noise and impacts to water and farmland – which is leading to unfavorable outcomes for renewable energy developers more broadly when a community turns against a data center.

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Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

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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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