Aerial view of a flock of sheep grazing in a solar farm with solar panels.(Getty Images.)
This story was originally published by Canary Media.
Months of proactive community engagement appeared to be paying off for the developer of the Grange Solar Grazing Center agrivoltaics project in central Ohio.
Open Road Renewables knew it faced an uphill battle before the state energy-siting board, whose recent deference to local opponents has helped make Ohio one of the most challenging places in the country to build large solar arrays. So the company showed up early and often in Logan County, listening to residents’ feedback and committing millions of dollars in donations for community investments.
As public comments rolled into state regulators, the developer reviewed the submissions last month and found a clear majority of those weighing in supported its plan. The analysis filtered out hundreds of repeat comments, at least 140 of which came from just 16 people who mostly opposed the project.
Optimism around Grange Solar lasted only days, however. On Feb. 21, staff at the Ohio Power Siting Board recommended denying the project’s permit: “Staff believes that any benefits to the local community are outweighed by the overwhelming documented public opposition and, therefore, the project would not serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
Open Road Renewables withdrew its application for Grange Solar late last week, making it at least the fifth large solar project in Ohio to be canceled over the past 15 months.
The case highlights the power that local opponents have to block renewable energy projects in Ohio, even when they otherwise check all the boxes for regulatory approval. It also raises the question: What more can developers do?
Open Road Renewables held listening sessions last spring for its up to 500-megawatt solar farm to learn about community concerns and address them even before applying for its permit. Beyond the $5 million in annual local tax revenue the development was expected to generate, the company committed $10 million in donations for a community center, public safety, a river cleanup, job training, and other programs.
“All legitimate concerns about the project were addressed and the benefits would have been spread far and wide,” Doug Herling, vice president of Open Road Renewables, said in an emailed statement.
The section of the siting board staff’s report that focuses on whether Grange Solar serves the public interest does not discuss local benefits. Nor does it address statewide public-interest issues, such as growing energy needs, efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and projected positive economic impacts.
The staff report also does not address conflict-of-interest issues and procedural problems raised by the developer about some of the local governments’ filings. And it doesn’t mention the company’s analysis of public comments, showing that three-fourths of those who had commented on the project supported it.
The staff recommendation also does not consider the merits of opponents’ reasons for not wanting Grange Solar to move ahead.
“[T]he dozens of pages of the [Power Siting Board] staff report represent rigorous analysis and thorough fact-checking of every aspect of Grange’s planned project,” Herling said. “But there is no such fact-checking of the onslaught of anti-solar propaganda, which caused local officials to make statements against solar.”
Renewable energy developments face increasing headwinds across the country, often fueled by misinformation. Research released last June by Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law identifies hundreds of projects encountering significant opposition across 47 states. And a July 2024 report from the watchdog organization Energy and Policy Institute lists multiple fossil-fuel companies with links to anti-renewable front groups and activists.
Withdrawing the Grange Solar application was a difficult business decision, Herling said in a phone interview with Canary Media. Management at the company felt it could have eventually won, if not at the Ohio Power Siting Board then perhaps on appeal. But even if the company did prevail, it had no guarantee on how long that would take. And Grange Solar is not the only site Open Road Renewables has been working on.
“The decision to withdraw the application is not surprising when you consider the cost of the administrative proceedings, hearings, and appeals that lay ahead and the challenge of persuading the Ohio Power Siting Board to override the recommendation of its staff to deny the application,” said Matthew Eisenson, a lawyer with Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He represented two landowners who had agreed to lease their property for the Grange Solar project.
The Ohio Power Siting Board’s staff report acknowledges that Grange Solar is exempt from terms in a 2021 law, Senate Bill 52, which let counties block most large new solar projects. Two representatives from the host county and townships would still have served as ad hoc siting board members for deciding the case.
“However, the [Power Siting Board] staff’s recommendation to deny the application when the only purported defect was the existence of local opposition, particularly opposition from local government officials, is analogous to giving local government officials veto power,” Eisenson said.
“Our voices were heard,” said Aubrey Snapp, a representative of the Indian Lake Advocacy Group, which has opposed Grange Solar and applauded its demise in a Feb. 28 statement.
Other stakeholders had very different reactions.
The regulatory staff’s recommendation to block the Grange Solar Grazing Center “not only disregards the needs of Logan County workers and their families, but also squanders the potential for Logan County to become a leader in renewable energy and attract further investment,” said a statement from IBEW Local 32, the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which its lawyer in the case, Daniel Loud, provided to Canary Media.
The union also found fault with the local government leaders who opposed the solar farm. “Local decision-makers have a fundamental responsibility to prioritize the economic well-being of their communities. By rejecting the Grange Solar project, they have failed to uphold this responsibility and have jeopardized the livelihoods of countless workers and families.”
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