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A conversation with Jason Kaminsky, CEO of renewables insurance data firm kWh Analytics.
This week we chatted with Jason Kaminsky, CEO of renewables insurance data firm kWh Analytics. Kaminsky has been laser focused on the real risks of physical damage solar and battery projects face – and the fears host communities feel about them. We talked about how those risks compare to fossil fuels and whether innovation could cure this industry ailment.
The following is an edited version of our conversation.
Are fossil fuel projects more or less insurable than the renewable projects you cover?
On the whole, renewables are more exposed to natural catastrophe risk. You’re putting glass out onto a field that has hail or fire or what have you, and you see more exposure to natural events than you would [even] a spinning turbine that's surrounded by steel. When we were getting to insuring property, the first risk that came onto our radar screen was hail risk. The industry had shifted development into Texas for a variety of reasons and the insurance companies at that point in time were not recalibrating their models for the fact there’s actually quite significant hail in Texas. And we were seeing significant losses.
It’s not uncommon to have multiple $50 million loss events in any given year for solar projects due to hail, typically in Texas, Oklahoma. That’s the zone of hail. And we don’t see that with a gas facility particularly because, well, it’s in a building.
But it’s way more distributed than a single fossil fuel facility, so even if you have a $50 million loss, that does not have an impact on the ability of the grid to generate.
The part of the facility that is not damaged will continue to produce power and put power onto the grid. You get many more partial loss events versus a gas facility where the turbine goes and you basically have a total loss. Your ability to distribute your risk is much greater with renewables, which is a very strong pro from an insurance underwriting perspective.
Are new technologies helping with renewables’ insurability?
In the last few years, there’s been a lot of innovation. At RE+ you walk among the floor of battery providers and they all have very impressive fire management capabilities, and it’s at the forefront of how they market their technology. You also see that with solar modules some have said, we’re hail resistant. The way they’re putting sensors onto cells, the way they’re running controls on cooling devices, the way thermal management systems and battery management systems have abilities to vent for heat… they’ve made a lot of improvements.
But it’s interesting – I was at an asset management conference in March and I’d been going to that conference for 10 years, and it was the first time I’d heard at that conference about the social license to operate. They’re seeing these quasi-local thought leader groups that all seem to be using the same talking points that oppose large scale solar in their communities, and they push local regulatory rules to reduce the ability to develop solar in their backyards. It was encouraging to see a discussion around it and an acknowledgement that as an industry we need to go into these communities and spend time talking to the local communities.
Fascinating. Do you think discussions like these are enough to mean progress in dealing with project opposition?
It’s not historically been in the DNA of our industry to do that. I’d say today the opposition is much more organized than many renewable energy developers today so it’s been this interesting phenomenon. The local opposition says we don’t want this industrial solar. It’s proven to be effective at killing some of these utility scale deals.
We still have a long way to go in educating communities and getting them comfortable with the land stewardship that happens at these facilities. The solar industry manages a ton of land. It’s not my core focus but I’ve been exposed to those challenges around the community engagement piece and I think most developers are still building the muscle in how to do that effectively.
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Inside a wild race sparked by a solar farm in Knox County, Ohio.
The most important climate election you’ve never heard of? Your local county commissioner.
County commissioners are usually the most powerful governing individuals in a county government. As officials closer to community-level planning than, say a sitting senator, commissioners wind up on the frontlines of grassroots opposition to renewables. And increasingly, property owners that may be personally impacted by solar or wind farms in their backyards are gunning for county commissioner positions on explicitly anti-development platforms.
Take the case of newly-elected Ohio county commissioner – and Christian social media lifestyle influencer – Drenda Keesee.
In March, Keesee beat fellow Republican Thom Collier in a primary to become a GOP nominee for a commissioner seat in Knox County, Ohio. Knox, a ruby red area with very few Democratic voters, is one of the hottest battlegrounds in the war over solar energy on prime farmland and one of the riskiest counties in the country for developers, according to Heatmap Pro’s database. But Collier had expressed openness to allowing new solar to be built on a case-by-case basis, while Keesee ran on a platform focused almost exclusively on blocking solar development. Collier ultimately placed third in the primary, behind Keesee and another anti-solar candidate placing second.
Fighting solar is a personal issue for Keesee (pronounced keh-see, like “messy”). She has aggressively fought Frasier Solar – a 120 megawatt solar project in the country proposed by Open Road Renewables – getting involved in organizing against the project and regularly attending state regulator hearings. Filings she submitted to the Ohio Power Siting Board state she owns a property at least somewhat adjacent to the proposed solar farm. Based on the sheer volume of those filings this is clearly her passion project – alongside preaching and comparing gay people to Hitler.
Yesterday I spoke to Collier who told me the Frasier Solar project motivated Keesee’s candidacy. He remembered first encountering her at a community meeting – “she verbally accosted me” – and that she “decided she’d run against me because [the solar farm] was going to be next to her house.” In his view, he lost the race because excitement and money combined to produce high anti-solar turnout in a kind of local government primary that ordinarily has low campaign spending and is quite quiet. Some of that funding and activity has been well documented.
“She did it right: tons of ground troops, people from her church, people she’s close with went door-to-door, and they put out lots of propaganda. She got them stirred up that we were going to take all the farmland and turn it into solar,” he said.
Collier’s takeaway from the race was that local commissioner races are particularly vulnerable to the sorts of disinformation, campaign spending and political attacks we’re used to seeing more often in races for higher offices at the state and federal level.
“Unfortunately it has become this,” he bemoaned, “fueled by people who have little to no knowledge of what we do or how we do it. If you stir up enough stuff and you cry out loud enough and put up enough misinformation, people will start to believe it.”
Races like these are happening elsewhere in Ohio and in other states like Georgia, where opposition to a battery plant mobilized Republican primaries. As the climate world digests the federal election results and tries to work backwards from there, perhaps at least some attention will refocus on local campaigns like these.
And more of the week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Madison County, Missouri – A giant battery material recycling plant owned by Critical Mineral Recovery exploded and became engulfed in flames last week, creating a potential Vineyard Wind-level PR headache for energy storage.
2. Benton County, Washington State – Governor Jay Inslee finally got state approvals finished for Scout Clean Energy’s massive Horse Heaven wind farm after a prolonged battle over project siting, cultural heritage management, and bird habitat.
3. Fulton County, Georgia – A large NextEra battery storage facility outside of Atlanta is facing a lawsuit that commingles usual conflicts over building these properties with environmental justice concerns, I’ve learned.
Here’s what else I’m watching…
In Colorado, Weld County commissioners approved part of one of the largest solar projects in the nation proposed by Balanced Rock Power.
In New Mexico, a large solar farm in Sandoval County proposed by a subsidiary of U.S. PCR Investments on land typically used for cattle is facing consternation.
In Pennsylvania, Schuylkill County commissioners are thinking about new solar zoning restrictions.
In Kentucky, Lost City Renewables is still wrestling with local concerns surrounding a 1,300-acre solar farm in rural Muhlenberg County.
In Minnesota, Ranger Power’s Gopher State solar project is starting to go through the public hearing process.
In Texas, Trina Solar – a company media reports have linked to China – announced it sold a large battery plant the day after the election. It was acquired by Norwegian company FREYR.What happened this week in climate and energy policy, beyond the federal election results.
1. It’s the election, stupid – We don’t need to retread who won the presidential election this week (or what it means for the Inflation Reduction Act). But there were also big local control votes worth watching closely.
2. Michigan lawsuit watch – Michigan has a serious lawsuit brewing over its law taking some control of renewable energy siting decisions away from municipalities.