An Ohio solar project overcomes local opposition and misinformation
This story was originally published by Canary Media.
A contested solar agrivoltaics project avoided having its permit denied by Ohio regulators, likely thanks to the neutral stances of a county board and one of its townships.
The Ohio Power Siting Board approved construction of the 120-megawatt Frasier Solar project late last month despite local groups’ organizing efforts, which led the other township within the project’s 840-acre footprint and a neighboring township to pass anti-solar resolutions. The power siting board has found that unanimous local government opposition was reason enough to decide other solar projects did not meet a public interest requirement under state law. One of those cases is before the Ohio Supreme Court.
In the Frasier case, however, local governing bodies for Knox County and Clinton Township stayed neutral. Knox County voted unanimously in 2023 to accept a payment arrangement instead of property taxes, which will add more than $40 million for local governments over the project’s 40-year useful life, but it took a neutral position on the project itself.
About six months after an evidentiary hearing — basically an administrative trial — on Frasier Solar, Knox County restricted new solar projects within most of its boundaries. However, legal counsel for the Ohio Ethics Commission found that a conflict of interest prevented Drenda Keesee, a newly elected Knox County commissioner, from taking official action against Frasier Solar because she owned property next to the project site. Another county commissioner served as an ad hoc power siting board member for the Frasier decision, so he could not take a position before hearing the case. He wound up voting with the board’s majority to grant the permit.
Prior to the administrative trial, Clinton Township’s board had clarified that despite an anti-solar position for future projects, it was officially neutral on Frasier Solar.
“We had a very small dog in the fight,” Clinton Township Trustee Jay Maners told Canary Media, noting that most of the project will be in Miller Township. He recalled that there was sparse attendance at early trustee meetings when the project was discussed, with most in favor of it. Then “everything exploded” with people suddenly voicing opposition, he said.
“There was a lot of misinformation,” Maners said, such as solar opponents falsely claiming tax dollars would pay for the project, and solar proponents warning about rising energy prices.
The Ohio Power Siting Board’s June 26 ruling discussed Clinton Township’s neutral stance on Frasier Solar, as well as that of Knox County, to stress that local government opposition was not unanimous. The board found that the project was in the public interest and approved the permit.
Supporters are celebrating the win for Frasier Solar but worry about how much the power siting board focused on whether local government opposition was unanimous. That leaves solar energy vulnerable to a standard that depends on potentially arbitrary local government rulings, rather than regulatory experts’ judgment of projects’ merits.
Frasier Solar is exempt from parts of Senate Bill 52, a 2021 law that lets counties block large solar and wind projects before they get to the power siting board. Yet its developer, Open Road Renewables, faced substantial local opposition and misinformation, much of which was stoked by a dark money group with multiple connections to fossil fuel interests and the anti-solar speakers it brought in. Opponents also went to local township meetings to push for anti-solar resolutions.
The staunch local opposition and involvement of fossil fuel interests fit a pattern playing out across the country. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University last month reported a 32% jump in the number of contested projects for 2024 compared with 2023.
Only within the past few years have state regulators used unanimous local government opposition as a reason to kill proposed solar projects. Those projects, like Frasier, were otherwise exempt from parts of the 2021 law. But Ohio regulations don’t contain such a rule. Another part of Ohio law appears to say that local government consent isn’t a condition for siting decisions.
“I’m certainly happy to see this project move forward, and it had every reason to move forward,” said Dan Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Yet he questioned what the role of the power siting board is if it lets unanimous local opposition control whether projects go ahead.
“They’ve got the goal post cemented in, and it’s in the wrong location,” Sawmiller said. As he sees it, the board and its staff have a responsibility to use their expertise to make decisions in the public interest for the whole state.
It’s also hard to fact-check local government resolutions, said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a Cleveland State University law professor who testified as an expert witness for the Ohio Environmental Council. Those decisions could be based on misinformation or simply be a response to political pressure, with little focus on the factual basis for objections.
Facts vs. misinformation
Frasier Solar became “known nationally as part of a case study on how the fossil fuel industry stokes opposition to renewable energy projects,” said Dave Anderson, policy and communications director for the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group on utility and fossil fuel influence.
Testimony at the administrative trial revealed that an anti-solar group called Knox Smart Development had big financial backing by Tom Rastin, who has been a leader of the Empowerment Alliance, an anonymously funded group that promotes the natural gas industry. Rastin is a former vice president of Ariel Corp., which makes equipment for the oil and gas industry.
Anti-solar media flourished throughout the area during the permitting process too. An eight-page Ohio Energy Reporter sent by bulk mail consisted mostly of anti-solar advertorials. Anti-solar stories and ads also ran in outlets such as the Mount Vernon News, which ProPublica described as a conservative “pink slime” publication.
Evidence introduced by the developer last summer characterized some of the opposition’s publicity as “misinformation campaigns,” which the power siting board noted in its opinion.
Nonetheless, the project had an “encouraging level of support, both locally and from across the state,” said Craig Adair, vice president for development at Open Road Renewables. About 40% of those who spoke at local public hearings or filed comments favored the project.
More significantly, the siting board considered the merits of comments, not just the total numbers. In doing so, the board focused on Robertson’s testimony, which found that half of opponents’ unique arguments at local hearings were factually inaccurate or unsupported by evidence. About a third were already addressed by permit conditions, and nearly one-tenth were just subjective opinions, she also found.
“The happy news is that the siting board and the staff weren’t snowed by the number of opposing comments,” Robertson told Canary Media. “We really were able to take the wind out of their sails on the vast majority of the negative comments.” A similar analysis may help in future cases, she suggested. “We can’t let truth and facts disappear. We have to keep pushing what is real.”
The board’s ruling also noted evidence provided by chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers about jobs and other positive economic benefits. Additional experts for the Ohio Environmental Council described how the solar farm and revenue from it could help local governments deal with climate change impacts.
“Given the risks Ohio faces from climate change, the board’s review of any application is incomplete without considering impacts,” said Karin Nordstrom, one of the Ohio Environmental Council’s lawyers in the case.
Adair welcomed the other parties’ supporting evidence and said he hopes to see the same level of scrutiny in future cases. “As long as the board continues to review projects on their merits and not fall prey to the misinformation, it’s encouraging,” he said.
Still, solar and wind projects continue to face hurdles under state law that don’t apply to fossil fuels. While counties now have the power to block most large solar and wind projects, local governments can’t even enforce zoning restrictions against oil and gas development.
“A lot of businesses are going to say, ‘I’ll take my investment elsewhere,’” Adair said. And while some projects like Frasier may get approval, the combination of SB 52 and other deference to local governments “is going to leave you vulnerable to getting the supply that you need on the grid,” he added.
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