Local opposition threatens clean energy transition

Utility-scale solar is becoming more cost-effective yet facing an unprecedented degree of local opposition, said a forthcoming paper forthcoming paper from the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Often rooted in misinformation or unfounded fears, these local restrictions “increasingly threaten to decelerate the nation’s transition to a sustainable low-carbon energy system,” the paper said.

Author Troy Rule, a professor of law, has been researching and publishing papers on renewable energy law and policy topics for more than 15 years.

“A couple of years ago, I noticed that a growing number of municipal governments were imposing severe local restrictions on utility-scale solar projects in rural areas,” Rule told pv magazine USA. “It’s easy to argue that this trend – which often runs counter to state-level policy goals – creates a need for a new generation of state-level solar rights laws aimed at better safeguarding rural landowners’ rights to harvest solar resources on their land.”

His research addresses how the “growing numbers of municipal governments have begun aggressively exercising that authority in new ways to severely restrict solar farm development.”

Over just the past few years, more than 100 rural U.S. counties have banned or severely restricted utility-scale solar development, the paper said.

Some new ordinances take a relatively direct approach to obstructing solar farm projects. For instance, an ordinance adopted in Osage County, Kansas, in 2022 flatly prohibits “any new commercial solar projects within the county’s borders,” while more nuanced restrictions can use setback restrictions.

The paper stated that although the recent spike in new local restrictions involved municipalities nationwide, it was concentrated most heavily in a handful of states. For example, within three years after Ohio state legislature enacted a law that expressly authorized local governments to restrict solar projects, more than 20 Ohio counties had imposed major restrictions on solar projects, he said.

Stated reasons for opposition

Rule said at least some of the recent wave of local opposition is rooted in either misinformation or disinformation about solar projects’ potential impacts on the community. “It appears that a share of this misleading information has originated from stakeholder groups that oppose solar energy growth,” Rule said, citing the ostensibly fossil-friendly group Citizens for Responsible Solar.

These arguments include:

that its large land footprint displaces food production and could thereby increase food prices;
claims about the potential environmental and human safety risks associated with these projects, such as assertions that solar panels could leach cadmium and other toxic substances into the soil;
claims that electromagnetic magnetic fields emanating from solar projects could pose significant health risk; and
the visual appearance of solar projects can threaten the rural character of farm-based communities.

Rule said that another set of oppositional stakeholders can be farmers who lease the land. “They are more likely to review solar project developers as competitors whose offers of high solar lease payments drive up agricultural land lease rates and could price tenant farmers out of business,” Rule said.

A new generation of solar rights laws

Rule said rural landowners have relatively weak solar development rights due to the many local governments that continue to wield substantial regulatory authority over solar siting and permitting processes.

Rule’s assertion has carried through across the 2025 legislative session. For example, in North Carolina, “The Farmland Protection Act” would cut tax incentives in half for utility-scale solar projects and make it harder for them to be installed on agricultural land. A bill in Texas would place additional fees, permitting restrictions and regulatory requirements on utility-scale renewable energy projects. In Michigan, a pair of bills aim to give local governments more control in forbidding solar projects on private land.

However, Rule said imposing state laws can be a cost-justifiable and effective way to promote solar energy development across the United States.

(Also read: Less than 3% of farmland could power the Midwest)

Rule said that much of the local opposition is often unwarranted and based on misinformation.

Land-use lawyers and scholars sometimes use the term “LULU” to describe “locally undesirable land uses” that produce net benefits for the broader society but are believed to impose significant costs on the local community, Rule said. Examples of LULUs include homeless shelters, prisons and interstate highways. Rule said it can often be difficult to secure siting and permitting approvals at the municipal level for LULUs because they often create more costs than benefits for the host neighborhood.

A common counterargument to using intrastate preemption statutes to facilitate the siting of LULUs, Rule said, is that it can undermine justice goals by causing the disproportionate siting of locally-harmful projects in disadvantaged communities. However, Rule argued that most solar projects do not impose significant costs on communities, so they “pose less of a justice concern than that of a prison or a coal-fired power plant.”

Solar projects seldom cause major disruptions to neighbors, he said, so they “arguably deserve to be treated at least as permissively under zoning laws as many conventional agricultural uses.”

According to the paper, “agricultural fertilizer use and livestock manure can degrade nearby surface water quality, contaminate water wells, and contribute to algal blooms in ways that directly or indirectly harm nearby land and other resources.” In contrast to much of the misinformation spread on social media, Rule said new solar projects often bring significant direct and indirect net benefits to their host communities and host state.

However, Rule said that “with sensible development standards in place, solar farms arguably create no greater threat to neighboring land uses than many common agricultural uses and thus deserve similarly favorable treatment within agricultural zoning districts.”

Many rural states already underregulate certain agricultural activities — including some uses known for imposing harms on neighbors, he said. For example, Iowa’s regulatory structure for concentrated animal feeding operation siting is notorious for creating foul odors that can annoy neighbors and reduce nearby property values, he said.

“Traditional agricultural operations are the single largest source of water pollution in the United States,” Rule said, “yet farm industry advocates’ strong political influence has perpetuated lax regulatory enforcement against agriculture’s pollutive effects for many decades.”

Rule said there are a variety of ways states can strengthen rural landowners’ solar developments rights. One such approach is to enact legislation empowering a state agency to approve the siting and permitting of most solar energy projects.

Another approach, he said, is to enact statutes that prohibit local governments from applying solar farm permitting standards more restrictive than a set of reasonable state-legislated standards.

States can also require municipal governments to classify solar farms as a “permitted use” within most agricultural and industrial zoning districts across the state, he said.

Finally, Rule said states can reinforce these next-generation solar rights laws with policies that ensure some monetary and other benefits flow to the broader communities that host solar energy projects.

(Also read: Utility-scale solar development: Good planning makes good neighbors)

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.