Grange Solar Withdrawal Highlights Need for Permitting Reform in Ohio
On February 28th, Open Road Renewables withdrew its application for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need application from the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) for Grange Solar, a 500MW project planned for portions of Logan County, Ohio. The withdrawal followed the release of the OPSB staff report that recommended denial of the project due to the applicant’s failure “to establish that the facility will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
The Grange Solar project was positioned to be a transformative investment, not only for Logan County but for Ohio as a whole. Had it moved forward, it would have generated significant job opportunities, earnings, and annual tax revenue to fund local schools and services. The application reflected many best practices of an ever-evolving industry: the incorporation of sheep grazing, voluntary contributions to locally identified priorities, and a demonstrated willingness to incorporate community feedback into project design.
Despite these efforts, under the current permitting process in Ohio for utility-scale solar projects, the project did not stand up to the scrutiny of what it means to be in the public interest. At the heart of the issue is the ambiguous definition of what truly constitutes the “public interest,” a term that lacks a clear, objective definition and a problem waiting to be resolved by the Ohio Supreme Court.
If we seek to quantify it ourselves in the absence of a definition, we can look to the project’s OPSB docket, where more than 2,500 public comments are recorded. Once duplicate commenters are accounted for, more than 80% of comments are supportive. However, local government sentiment has been allotted an outsized role in taking the temperature of public interest. In this case, Logan County, all five townships, and the relevant village went on the record stating their opposition to the project. The OPSB staff cited this recorded opposition as the primary reason for their finding, stating that “any benefits to the local community are outweighed by the overwhelming documented public opposition.”
While local input is essential to project development, the current permitting process in Ohio fails to account for the broader statewide and regional benefits of utility-scale solar projects. And as Canary Media reported, “the state’s deference to local opponents, through legislation and regulatory decisions, has made Ohio a challenging place to develop large clean energy projects.”
Utility-scale clean energy projects such as Grange Solar have far-reaching implications, not just for local economies, but for the state and region as a whole. In fact, projects of this scale are critical to Ohio’s overall energy stability and economic vitality. [See Powering Ohio’s Growth: Utility-Scale Solar as a Solution]. It is for this reason that Steve Stivers, President and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, stated the chamber’s support for policy reform in the state, stating, “We believe that our decisions – power generation decisions – should be made on a statewide basis, not a township or county basis because the grid is a very complicated, statewide electric grid that should be evaluated to make sure that the entire state has all the energy that it needs.”
While the withdrawal of Grange Solar underscores the need for reform in Ohio’s permitting process, this is not a problem limited to Ohio. As energy demand rises, many states are grappling with how to permit utility-scale solar projects while balancing state and local input. CICE has developed a set of Permitting & Siting Principles to serve as guidance on permitting processes that are clear, consistent, and efficient. These principles emphasize the importance of incorporating both state and local feedback in a way that ensures long-term reliability and economic vitality for host communities and states.