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Hotspots

Southcoast Wind’s Last Dash

And more of this week’s top fights around renewable energy.

Map of renewable energy fights.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – The Biden administration is rushing to finish permitting Ocean Winds’ Southcoast Wind project, a joint venture between EDP Renewables and Engie, before Donald Trump returns to the White House. Questions remain as to whether it can be done.

  • Since Election Day, Southcoast Wind has received full environmental review and received a draft EPA air permit last week. We’re still waiting on a record of decision though and until then, all bets are off.
  • Complicating matters is the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, which is now fighting the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to get more money and benefits in the event the project is fully permitted. They’re worried about blade failures.
  • Legal counsel for the town wrote BOEM on Oct. 30 objecting to the agency’s plans for mitigating potential impacts to the town’s historic properties, arguing the Vineyard Wind blade collapse must be fully investigated before any final approvals are granted.
  • Given how Southcoast Wind is close to the finish line at the federal level, I’m watching to see if this dispute with Nantucket becomes a basis for a permitting reversal in the event it can’t make its way through the process before Trump comes into office.

2. Pittsburg County, Oklahoma – Momentum is building for an anti-wind moratorium in this Oklahoma county home to multiple proposed wind projects.

  • The push for a moratorium is a response to a wind farm proposed by Red Earth Energy, according to the popular anti-wind blog National Wind Watch.
  • Activists this week packed a small meeting room with county officials to pressure them into action after they refused to develop an ordinance blocking wind. You can watch the chaos unfold on this cellphone video posted to Facebook.
  • Reports indicate activists are taking this fight anywhere they can – including county Republican Party meetings – in advance of potential litigation and lobbying state regulators.

3. Benton County, Washington – Remember when we told you advocates were going to sue over Washington state approving the Horse Heaven wind farm project? It’s happening.

  • Tri-Cities CARES was able to get enough money on its own to start the litigation process, although it has not released how much money it was able to fundraise, per local media. It estimates needing at least $200,000 on hand, which is a lot for a grassroots nonprofit.
  • As we previously told you, Tri-Cities CARES is not the group with the strongest standing to win a lawsuit against the state’s approval – that’s the Yakima Nation. The jury’s out as to whether they’ll be joining the activists here.

4. Branch County, Michigan – When a solar farm and a transmission project are the ones fighting, who wins? In the Mitten State, we’re about to find out.

  • NorthStar Clean Energy’s Branch Solar farm in south central Michigan is directly in the path of a proposed transmission line. NorthStar was just granted permission to intervene in the state regulator planning process, allowing them to weigh in on the line’s paths.
  • Plans for the transmission line are expected to be completed by mid-2025.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

In Ohio, a wind farm got a local approval for once: NextEra’s Swan Lake project.

In New Mexico, a county has approved the tax agreement for Orsted’s Blackwater solar project.

In Pennsylvania, a local newspaper’s editorial board has come out against activists that have “put the kibosh to more than a dozen proposed solar farm projects throughout the region.”

In West Virginia, state regulators have approved a Nedpower Mount Storm wind farm after the company reduced its size by more than 40 percent.

In Virginia, local officials are bracing for Virginia Beach traffic jams over constructing the Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia offshore wind project.

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Spotlight

Is the California Battery Fire an East Palestine Moment?

Moss Landing is turning into a growing problem for the energy storage industry.

Moss Landing in the crosshairs.
Heatmap Pro/Getty Images

The Moss Landing battery fire now may be the storage industry’s East Palestine moment – at least in California.

In the weeks since Vistra’s battery plant south of San Francisco caught fire on January 16, at least two lawsuits have been filed against Vistra, PG&E, and battery manufacturer LG Chem by people and business owners claiming damages from the blaze. I have learned at least one more will be filed by individuals who’ve conducted headline-grabbing soil samples that found toxic metals.

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Hotspots

The Vineyard Wind Lawsuit 2.0

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

The Vineyard Wind Lawsuit 2.0

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – Welcome to the Vineyard Wind lawsuit 2.0.

  • Fishermen represented by a conservative legal group – the Texas Public Policy Foundation – filed a petition to the Supreme Court this week asserting that the justices can now reconsider approvals for the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project because of the high court’s decision to overturn the Chevron doctrine, a now-defunct judicial precedent that courts defer to agencies on statutory interpretation.
  • It’s not entirely clear whether overturning Chevron will produce a different outcome than the Court’s decision to ignore the last petition from fisherman about Vineyard Wind’s permits. But the argument is definitely different, as the new petition argues a lower court wrongly deferred to agency interpretation of federal laws used to approve the project.
  • The Texas Public Policy Foundation did not respond to requests to discuss this case.

2. Carroll County, Maryland – Carroll County commissioners are intervening in the state permitting fight over two relatively small solar projects, in what has become a wider proxy battle between the county and the state over solar on farmland.

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Q&A

The Case for Agrivoltaics

A conversation with Samantha Levy of American Farmland Trust

The Case for Agrivoltaics

Today’s conversation is with Samantha Levy, senior policy manager for conservation and energy at American Farmland Trust, an agriculture and energy advocacy organization I became familiar with through covering the conflict over solar on farmland. I reached out to Levy after the organization released new recommendations for agrivoltaics policy last week – just before a large agrivoltaics project was canceled in Ohio over local opposition. I wanted to ask: are there any bright spots for the future of solar and farms commingling?

Today’s conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

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