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Hotspots

Trump Cancels Key Meeting for Vineyard Wind Expansion

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

Renewable energy conflicts map.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Dukes County, Massachusetts – The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management canceled a key meeting required for the environmental review of Vineyard Offshore’s expansion into the New York bight, in what appears to be the first time the agency has publicly canceled offshore wind review meetings for projects in the Atlantic Ocean since Trump took office.

  • BOEM had previously canceled a meeting for offshore wind leases in the Pacific. But this new move, which was announced late Tuesday evening, indicates the administration is not only limiting final approvals for new offshore wind leases but also procedural steps historically done in the permitting process for individual projects.
  • BOEM published a notice it would start the environmental impact statement process for the Vineyard Mid-Atlantic project in the final days of the Biden administration. The project would generate more than 2 gigawatts of power, according to the agency.
  • In a brief public statement, the agency said it was canceling virtual meetings for the environmental impact statement that were scheduled today. BOEM cited Trump’s executive order targeting offshore wind that paused “new or renewed approvals, rights-of-way, permits, leases, or loans for offshore wind projects” – at least until the government does a purported review of the offshore wind industry.
  • What’s unclear still is why this executive order triggered canceled meetings. How is a gathering for comment considered an approval or a permit? Does this mean BOEM’s putting a stop to any and all staff activity related to offshore wind?
  • I asked BOEM these questions and I will let you know if I hear back. Based on what we’re hearing is going on at other agencies, this doesn’t bode well for wind developers.

2. San Luis Obispo County, California – The ballooning Moss Landing battery fire PR crisis is now impacting other battery projects in the surrounding area.

  • Origis Energy’s Caballero battery storage project in San Luis Obispo is now facing fierce local opposition citing the Moss Landing event, with residents calling for their own temporary battery storage moratoria.
  • The catch is, Caballero’s construction is near completion after being approved by county regulators three years ago. According to local TV station KEYT, county supervisors have declined to take up requests to block the project “particularly due to potential litigation the county could face if they were to try and reverse the approval.”
  • I’m watching the backlash to Moss Landing spread outside of California, too.
  • The town of Duanesburg, New York, last week banned battery storage facilities within its municipal limits, with officials referencing the battery fire on the West Coast to make the case these facilities are somehow a hazard to public health and the environment.

3. Marshall County, Indiana – We have what might be the wildest moratorium we’ve seen passed so far in Fight history: a ban on solar farms, carbon capture, battery storage, and data centers – all at once!

  • Marshall County commissioners enacted the 2-year moratorium on all these tech facilities earlier this week unanimously in a quick vote. It is the first time I have found decarb facilities banned by a county in tandem with data centers.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on…

In Alabama, a new Silicon Ranch solar proposal in Montgomery County is running into local ire (which is predictable at this point in this region).

In Louisiana, Ascension is getting grilled by residents near a carbon capture test well.

In Massachusetts, National Grid canceled a geothermal heating pilot project.

In Michigan, Ranger Power’s solar project in Tuscola County is facing some familiar “prime farmland” criticism.

In Nebraska, Midwest Electric Cooperative Corp. won a permit from Perkins County commissioners to build a solar project.

In North Carolina, NextEra Energy’s Muscov solar project is reportedly facing delays due to local opposition.

In Wisconsin, Invenergy’s solar project in Janesville is facing concerns from the local state representative – who is a Democrat.

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Q&A

Will Blue States Open Up Their Wallets for Renewables?

A conversation with Heather O’Neill of Advanced Energy United.

The Fight Q&A subject.
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This week’s conversation is with Heather O’Neill, CEO of renewables advocacy group Advanced Energy United. I wanted to chat with O’Neill in light of the recent effective repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean electricity tax credits and the action at the Interior Department clamping down on development. I’m quite glad she was game to talk hot topics, including the future of wind energy and whether we’ll see blue states step into the vacuum left by the federal government.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Spotlight

The Anti-Renewables Movement is Coming for Your Wires

The Grain Belt Express was just the beginning.

Oklahoma.
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The anti-renewables movement is now coming for transmission lines as the Trump administration signals a willingness to cut off support for wires that connect to renewable energy sources.

Last week, Trump’s Energy Department with a brief letter rescinded a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee to Invenergy for the Grain Belt Express line that would, if completed, connect wind projects in Kansas to areas of Illinois and Indiana. This decision followed a groundswell of public opposition over concerns about land use and agricultural impacts – factors that ring familiar to readers of The Fight – which culminated in Republican Senator Josh Hawley reportedly asking Donald Trump in a meeting to order the loan’s cancellation. It’s unclear whether questions around the legality of this loan cancellation will be resolved in the courts, meaning Invenergy may just try to trudge ahead and not pick a fight with the Trump administration.

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Hotspots

Vineyard Wind Is Besieged Again

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

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – The fight over Vineyard Wind is back with a vengeance. But can an aggrieved vacation town team up with conservative legal activists to take down an operating offshore wind project?

  • The offshore wind project, which is under construction and currently provides power to Massachusetts, was threatened this week when Nantucket signaled it may sue Vineyard Wind over a laundry list of demands related to the facility and last year’s blade breakage. Then less than 24 hours later, the Texas Public Policy Foundation – a conservative legal advocacy group – filed a petition to the Interior Department requesting it not only reconsider previous permits issued for Vineyard Wind but also halt operations at the site.
  • It’s hard to ignore the timing here: before this flurry of activity, the Interior Department released a new secretarial order that laid out many ways it would potentially go after wind facilities. One method would be potentially settling lawsuits filed against both offshore and onshore wind projects in favor of plaintiffs.
  • We are still waiting to see if Interior will take up the Vineyard Wind petition. But this activity suggests that opponents of offshore wind feel increasingly emboldened by the anti-renewables direction that Trump has taken in recent weeks, and we may soon find out if their aspirations for killing operating projects are well-founded.

2. Henry County, Virginia – A fresh fiasco around a solar farm is renewing animus against solar projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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