State officials rejected an application last week to build a $98 million solar farm in Morrow County, making it the seventh large-scale solar facility rejected in Ohio since 2020.
As has become a pattern with such rejections, the members of the Ohio Power Siting Board didn’t raise any technical, environmental or engineering faults with the project. Rather, they said the 726-acre array failed to meet the requirement that it serve the “public interest, convenience and necessity” given that some local township trustees and county commissioners opposed the project.
The OPSB is a state agency tasked with reviewing permit applications to decide whether a given power project can be built in a given space.
The ruling underscores the hostile climate for private renewable energy investments in Ohio, stark divisions within rural communities over renewables, and the unique powers that local governments and residents wield if they wish to block a solar project here.
Open Road Renewables, the developer, has been working on Crossroads Solar since 2019, said Craig Adair, a company vice president. But he said Ohio’s laws turn power siting decisions into “popularity contests,” allowing negative public comments (and in some cases, as his company has alleged, “fabricated” ones) and local township trustees to thwart much-needed electricity to fuel an increasingly hungry power grid.
The company plans to appeal the rejection. Regardless, Adair said Open Road, which has already built eight solar farms in Ohio worth a combined $1 billion in capital, won’t develop here again until the state’s restrictive renewable energy laws change.
“This is no longer a good business proposition,” he said. “We’re not starting any new projects in Ohio.”
The company can still request a formal rehearing from the Ohio Power Siting Board and appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.
As planned, Crossroads would have included between 150,000 and 200,000 solar racks, with a sheep grazing operation to manage the vegetation and add a folksy appeal. It would have generated 94 megawatts, enough to power tens of thousands of Ohioans’ homes.
Besides the up-front construction costs, the solar farm was slated to employ about five people full time and pump $1 million into the economy each year, not counting temporary construction jobs and local earnings. It would have generated an estimated $250,000 per year in property tax revenue for local governments.
The decision is also a loss for the landowners who struck a deal with the developers to host solar panels on their farmland.
“The story and the real concern here is farmers who are being squeezed from every side, they made the hard decision to lease their land for solar,” Adair said.
‘When objective analysis is overridden’
Members of the public offered mixed reactions to the development.
At a public hearing held in Cardington, Ohio, 52 individuals testified, of whom 21 supported the project and 31 opposed.
The supporters emphasized landowners’ rights to do as they wish with their property, the importance of any new energy development, and the basic promise of new investment.
Opponents’ concerns varied from a perceived harmful effect on home prices, impacts to the rural aesthetics, loss of “prime farmland,” and even baseless concerns about “potential impacts on the health of residents and contamination of water and soil around the Facility due to its toxicity,” according to the OPSB.
Two Republican lawmakers – Rep. Riordan McClain and Sen. Bill Reineke – personally wrote to the OPSB and urged rejection.
“Negative impacts [of solar] are both known and unknown, ranging from community division, environmental impacts to water and wildlife, future brownfield remediation, and more,” McClain, who didn’t return a phone call, said. “The positive impacts simply do not outweigh the real and potential negative impacts at this time.”
Three legislative Democrats endorsed the project, as did a spread of ordinary Ohioans.
“Local residents and officials have zero say on where oil and gas projects go, and yet fossil fuel projects are much more polluting,” wrote Alice Petersen, of Toledo.
“Particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions make people sick and drive extreme weather. Solar projects like Crossroads Solar generate clean energy at a time when everyone agrees we need more electricity on the grid.”
Nolan Rutschilling, managing director of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council, said the data center AI boom has left the state starving for more electrons into the grid. The Power Siting Board commissioners and staff, he said, have created an uncertain environment that’s sure to discourage future investment.
“When objective analysis is overridden, and the volume of public input is prioritized over its substance, it weakens trust in the process and makes it harder to build the energy system Ohio needs,” he said.
The case drew particular attention due to claims from the company that some public comments were “fabricated.” Adair based the allegation on searches of some commenters whose identities couldn’t be verified by the yellow pages, voter rolls, social media and other sources.
The Power Siting Board, in its written order and in comments through a spokesperson, largely sidestepped the allegation, noting that its rules allow for anonymous public comments as well.