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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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