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Hotspots

Vineyard Wind’s New Fight

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

Map.
Heatmap illustration.

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – A new group – Keep Nantucket Wild – is mobilizing opposition to the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project, seeking to capitalize on the recent blade breakage to sever the town of Nantucket’s good neighbor agreement with project developer Avangrid.

  • Keep Nantucket Wild was started weeks ago by raw bar restaurateur Jesse Sandole and yoga studio owner Evie O’Connor. The group already has amassed more than 1,000 signatures on a petition to the town select board to pull out of the good neighbor agreement.
  • Town officials have previously said they will renegotiate the pact, which included a $16 million company payment into a community fund and promises to reduce nighttime visual impacts.

2. East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana – One lowkey local election this fall may decide the future of Louisiana’s renewables: the swing seat on the state’s Public Service Commission, which is being vacated this year by a retiring moderate Republican.

  • Only 3% of Louisiana’s power generation came from renewables last year but that’s poised for significant growth thanks to offshore wind development in the Gulf and the PSC’s decision over the summer to let Entergy expand its solar capacity in the state by 3 GW.
  • State Sen. J.P. Coussan is one of the leading candidates for the opening on the PSC. A Republican, he said at an event last month that he’s open to more solar but is worried about “losing the farmland” that could be used by the sugar business. He also believes renewables will ultimately make up “lower than overall 10% of the power matrix.”
  • There are two other candidates for the open seat: Republican former state Sen. Julie Quinn, who is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and opposes renewables, and Democrat Nick Laborde, who deeply supports renewables but has never served in public office and currently works in human resources.

3. Logan County, Ohio – Invenergy’s Fountain Point solar project cleared a hurdle with the Ohio Power Siting Board last month. But the 280 megawatt proposal may face a lengthy appeals process, according to Mike Yoder, a county commissioner who had recently served as an ad hoc member of the OPSB.

  • Yoder, whose county is where the project is proposed, told local radio on Monday that the project is not affected by a recent law empowering counties against solar and wind as challenges to the project began before the law was passed.
  • But discussing potential challenges to the state Supreme Court, Yoder said he expects construction is still “well down the road.”
  • “I know that we got some emails from folks who were concerned we would be voting on it and moving forward and everything happened in two or three days and that’s not really the way it’s going to be,” he said.

4. Riverside County, California – The federal government is now taking public comment on a 100+ megawatt solar farm proposed in the California desert in an area demarcated as a priority for energy development.

  • The Sapphire Solar project, which was proposed by EDF Renewables, has also been targeted by wildlife conservationists focused on tortoise protection. Sound familiar?
  • We’ll find out whether environmental concerns pervade at the government’s Oct. 24 in person and virtual public meetings on the project, which could shed new light on how stakeholders are grappling with solar projects on federally-preferred areas with wildlife conflicts.

Here’s some more fights we’re watching closely…

In Maryland, commissioners in eastern Berlin County have rejected a TurningPoint Energy utility-scale solar farm.

In New Jersey, the group Save Long Beach Island filed a notice of intent to sue against the Atlantic Shores offshore wind approvals last week.

In New York, the town of Oyster Bay has extended its battery storage moratorium for six months to block a project proposed by Jupiter Power Company.

In North Dakota, regulators told staff to put together a final order on the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline, though no date or decision has been discussed.

In Oregon, grassroots opposition is mobilizing against a Hanwha Qcells solar manufacturing 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.
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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