GLOBALVARS
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1. Pinal County, Arizona – If you can’t build a solar or a wind farm somewhere, it’s really hard to get a data center built there too.
- That’s the lesson readers should take away from the situation in Pinal County, where historically speaking at least 5 solar projects have been withdrawn over the years after facing local opposition, according to Heatmap Pro data. You should expect some data centers to potentially wind up in the same graveyard.
- On Wednesday, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors rejected the La Osa Energy Center, a large proposed data center and gas-fired power complex. The board in this deep red rural desert community is rock-ribbed Republican. Only one supervisor on the board dissented, citing private property rights concerns.
- The county currently has a restrictive ordinance against data center development unless they are in industrial areas, but has not yet approved a project since the ordinance was crafted, making this now a de facto no-go zone for developers. This went against the requests of the county zoning board, which recommended making the project site as industrial. If that pattern sounds familiar to you, that’s because you recognize it from the many cases we’ve seen in solar and wind development where political officials similarly override zoning staff.
2. St. Joseph County, Indiana – Thousands of miles away from Arizona, a similar division is dominating the fight over whether to enact a 2-year moratorium on data centers in the county home of South Bend.
- Unlike Pinal, St. Joseph is run by a county council that apparently split down partisan lines on whether to enact the moratorium. Republicans are supportive; Democrats are against using an arbitrarily timed mechanism. Democratic Council President Bryan Tanner told local public radio affiliate WVPE this week: “I don’t think that an arbitrary time clock is a replacement for good judgement and a sound alignment with the five components of rezoning and land use that the state of Indiana ascribes local government with.”
- But this county is also just like Pinal. Before data centers occupied officials, they were struggling under the weight of a solar power backlash that’s still ongoing. Also, both Pinal and St. Joseph have roughly the same clean energy and data center opposition risk in the Heatmap Pro database.
3. Ingham County, Michigan – The first solar farm fight has been resolved under Michigan’s new renewables siting law.
- Along with creating a streamlined permitting system, the state’s 2023 permitting law put forth a regime to resolve disputes between localities and renewables developers. On Thursday, Ranger Power’s 90-megawatt Acceleration Solar project was cleared for construction under a settlement agreement between the company and multiple townships who were opposed to the project.
- Now, Ranger Power will have numerous noise and light regulations, as well as restrictions on tree clearing and visibility. The most interesting thing about the agreement to me is that Ranger Power will have to pay at least $2,000 per megawatt towards “host community benefit payments” that would go towards the towns’ sewer and drain maintenance as well as firefighting staff.
- This is probably the first time in my history of writing The Fight that I’m able to say a law is actually resolving disputes between developers and localities, a mark of model legislation.
