7/13/24 How OH killed Solar & Wind article COPIED & PASTED
How state legislation led the banning of big wind and solar projects in a fourth of Ohio’s counties
- Updated: Jul. 13, 2024, 10:05 a.m | Published: Jul. 13, 2024, 5:30 a.m. Jake Zuckerman
COLUMBUS, Ohio – In Erie County, you can’t build solar farms on unincorporated land or wind turbines off the lakeshore.
It’s the same story for the unincorporated land in Ottawa County. And in Mahoning County, after local township trustees killed Alpin Sun’s plans for a 150-megawatt solar farm, the county followed suit and banned all wind and solar a few months later. The list goes on and on.
Counties and townships in Ohio have no legal right to ban coal or natural gas projects in town – such power siting decisions are left to the state. However, under a law passed by state Republicans in 2021, local governments can now ban wind and solar farms from their jurisdictions. Since that law took effect, 24 of Ohio’s 88 counties have banned wind or solar in all or some of their lands, according to a new report from researchers at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
The wind and the sun currently produce the cheapest energy in the U.S., according to Lazard, a financial advisory firm. But as the planet bakes, such renewable generation is effectively off limits in more than 1-in-4 counties in the state.
“Most [states] have made it more difficult for local governments to block wind and solar development,” said Matthew Eisenson, one of the researchers, noting Illinois and Michigan recently adopted such policies. “Ohio went in the opposite direction.”
Eisenson said the new policy distorts markets away from the cheapest energy, and favors fossil fuels like gas and coal.
Neither of the 2021 bill’s sponsors – GOP state Sens. Rob McColley of Napoleon and Bill Reineke of Tiffin – responded to inquiries about the report or effects of SB52.The state doesn’t keep any centralized list of counties that passed such wind or solar bans. But according to the researchers, the counties that banned solar are Adams, Allen, Auglaize, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Columbiana, Erie, Fairfield, Fayette, Greene, Hancock, Henry, Licking, Logan, Madison, Mahoning, Marion, Medina, Ottawa, Putnam, Seneca, Union and Wayne. Most of these 24 counties have also established restrictions on wind.
“Importantly, there are still over two-thirds of Ohio counties that have not implemented bans, and those counties are well situated to benefit from responsibly sited utility-scale solar,” Tavenor said.
“We’re also seeing municipal utilities explore their own options for renewable energy generation. Ohio can still play a key role in national decarbonization efforts even as some counties decide to ban solar and wind.”
Power companies, utility companies, grid operators and policy makers have all made clear that Ohio needs more electricity in play. Solar should continue to be a part of it, said Will Hinman, executive director of the Utility Scale Solar Energy Coalition of Ohio.
“When counties ban solar, they stand to lose out on millions of dollars in revenue for schools and other critical local services, hundreds of construction and long-term operations and maintenance jobs, and the opportunity to help meet our state’s increasing demand for more power,” he said.
Ohio regulators are still working through projects that predate 2021′s Senate Bill 52. But it’s almost certain that the policy has chilled long-term investment in Ohio from the industry, said Evan Vaughn, executive director of MAREC Action, a consortium of wind developers in the Midwest. Some of the biggest constraints the energy faces is land, willing landowners, and ability to plug into the grid. Nixing huge swaths of land will inevitably increase prices, and the new power of unpredictable local governments increases that uncertainty.
“It’s significant, there’s no getting around it,” he said. “Having a large portion of a state basically say no to the most cost effective and clean energy sources that we’re deploying on the grid now is going to have an impact.”
State Sen. Kent Smith, a Euclid Democrat who voted against the bill, said he’d have expected more local bans, given how many county commissions in Ohio are controlled by Republicans. Still, he said it’s a poor decision these counties made, because long-term investment is shifting to renewables, which don’t require inputs like raw coal or gas. But Kent Smith has also supported nuclear & is a mixed bag.
“I think those 24 counties have made a mistake, and they’re leaving valuable revenue on the table,” he said.
The protests around wind and solar tend to focus on spoiled viewsheds, drainage issues, the temporary loss of agricultural land, or incidental bird kills from wind turbines. Some of the criticisms are more far-fetched, with citizens baselessly warning the Ohio Power Siting Board at public hearings of human health and drinking water contamination from solar projects.
Grandfathered in?
In some ways, SB52 has done more damage to renewable development than designed.
Late in the legislative process, House lawmakers negotiated in an amendment designed to “grandfather” projects already in the development queue, locking them into the old rules. However, the Ohio Power Siting Board has since cited local political opposition in claiming the projects failed to satisfy a legal requirement that a solar or wind site serve the “public interest, convenience or necessity.” Thus, local opposition has killed or threatened even the grandfathered projects.
For instance, developers behind Kingwood Solar, a 175-megawatt project in Greene County, have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the board’s denial of its permit. They say the board ignored the economic benefits and tax revenue of the project and rejected it based solely on opposition from local citizens and elected officials.
“The public interest is not synonymous with public opinion or perception,” their attorneys wrote in court filings.
In that case, the Chamber of Commerce and Senate Democrats filed briefs in support of the developers. Senate Republicans and the local governments filed in support of some of the board’s rejection.
The power siting board made the same decision on the same reasoning against Cepheus Solar, a 68-megawatt project in Defiance County, and Birch Solar, a 300-megawatt project in Allen and Auglaize counties that even drew personal opposition from Senate President Matt Huffman, who lives in the area.
Board staff recommended the rejection of Circleville Solar, a proposed 70-megawatt project in Pickaway County, given opposition from the county commission. The board hasn’t yet decided the fate of the grandfathered project.
House Majority Leader Bill Seitz helped draft and negotiate the grandfathering amendment and voted for SB52. He has since written to the power siting board asking that its members honor the grandfathering rule. However, he declined to say whether board flouted its terms.
“Local opposition is relevant, but not determinative, as to those [pre-SB52] projects,” he said.
As for Ohio’s renewable-free zones, Seitz said he can’t say it’s a bad thing that “local control” produced these results. But the solar developers, he said, need to do a better job persuading communities to support the projects.
While he said he’s encouraged by pending legislation that could expand rooftop or community solar in Ohio, the outlook is poor for the big projects.“I think the big huge projects on super valuable farmland are going to run into a buzzsaw of opposition,” he said.
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