Renewable energy is winning in Michigan for now because local control measures are off the ballot

A 2023 Michigan law limits the power of local governments to block wind and solar projects, but the measure remains in limbo due to the possibility of development opponents obtaining enough signatures to force a repeal vote.

This period of uncertainty ended after it was announced that the referendum campaign had failed to qualify for the November ballot.

Organizers of the Citizens for Local Choice campaign confirmed Tuesday that they missed the deadline to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures needed from voters this year. They promised to continue their work.

“The campaign is strong and robust, and while we have not met the required signature threshold to qualify for the 2024 ballot, we will continue our ambitious efforts to take advantage of our legal 180-day window and work to secure a spot on the ballot in 2026 ” – she added. the organization said in a statement.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who signed the bill into law in November, now has at least two years to show voters her approach is the right one.

I think Michigan’s law, if implemented properly, could become a model for states that want to prevent local governments from vetoing almost all wind and solar projects, but also want the approval process to take local concerns into account.

Michigan’s bill is one of several passed in Democratic-controlled states that have responded to growing opposition to renewable energy in rural counties. Other recent examples include a 2023 Illinois bill that severely limited local site control, and two Minnesota bills from 2023 and earlier this month that regulate the approval process for energy projects. My colleague Kristoffer Tigue wrote about Minnesota’s latest proposal before it was passed.

States have an incentive to enact these laws because they will likely be unable to meet their renewable energy transition requirements if county governments prohibit or severely restrict development.

At the same time, local government leaders said they only reflected the sentiment of voters who fear that wind and solar energy are transforming the landscape in harmful ways.

Sarah Mills, a professor at the University of Michigan who writes about how renewable energy sources fit into local planning, walked me through the new law in her state.

“No” is no longer an option from the point of view of local authorities, she said. “The question is how to get to yes.”

The law gives local governments several options to deal with large wind and solar projects proposed in their jurisdictions. One option is to have the Michigan Public Service Commission review and approve it. Another option is for the local government to adopt a “compatible renewable energy ordinance,” which would set rules for development but is prohibited by state law from excessively restricting or prohibiting development. A third option is for local governments to leave current rules in place, but developers now have the option to declare the rules unenforceable and take their proposal to the state commission.

Before the introduction of the new law, local governments had broad powers regarding wind and photovoltaic projects, which made it much easier for them to block the development of renewable energy.

Mills is optimistic that pursuing the three options can lead to development-enabling outcomes, with guardrails to protect local needs.

So far, no county has adopted a compliant local ordinance, in part because local officials have been waiting for the repeal act to go into effect, and not long has passed since the law went into effect.

Mills expects some of the counties that are prime investment areas, with plenty of open land and strong wind or solar energy resources, to adopt these ordinances, but she said that’s just a guess on her part.

She is critical of state laws that limit local control over renewable energy projects because she believes the long-term solution is for rural communities to work with developers to determine how wind and solar energy can meet local needs. Projects can meet local needs through tax payments that help pay for local priorities, or by avoiding proposing developments in county-designated sites for other purposes.

Her more important position is that renewable energy developers and government officials will not be able to build long-term support for the energy transition by forcing projects on rural communities.

“I am cautiously optimistic about how Michigan’s law will be implemented,” she said. “I hope the state will reaffirm the importance of thoughtful planning at the community level and, in doing so, become a national model for advancing climate priorities across the state without sacrificing local priorities, and see host communities as partners in the energy transition, not an obstacle. But I think we’re still in a wait-and-see mode. How this ends depends largely on implementation.

Environmental and clean energy advocates are celebrating the failure of the Citizens for Local Choice initiative to qualify for the ballot. During the campaign, they noted that some people involved in the vote had ties to fossil fuel companies and organizations and had used misleading information in the past to stoke fear of wind and solar energy.

“This is a huge victory for clean energy progress in Michigan and a huge defeat for dark fossil fuel interests who are trying to abuse siting policies to derail the clean energy economy,” Courtney Bourgoin, senior policy and advocacy manager for the Midwest, said in a statement at Evergreen Action, an environmental group.

I asked Bourgoin whether the 2023 bill could increase negative attitudes toward wind and solar energy in rural areas.

“I think as more of these projects come online, communities will really start to experience the benefits of them,” she said.

In other words, the opposition is more about fear of what the designs might look like than of reality.

For that reason, she believes the next two years, before the issue could appear on the 2026 ballot, will give renewable energy developers a chance to prove many of the objections are valid.

The anti-development campaign claims that wind and solar power are ugly and potentially dangerous. Good designs can allay these concerns.

Mills agrees that well-executed projects with clear local benefits can help mitigate opposition. But he also knows from his own research on local attitudes that some of his fiercest opponents will likely never emerge.

The larger goal of Michigan, or any state, is to have policies that have enough support that they do not change when a new party comes to power. Whitmer, who was re-elected in 2022 and will leave office at the end of 2026, has time to implement her vision if it is indeed a priority for her.

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Other energy transition stories to remember this week:

School districts receive $900 million from EPA to fund electric school buses: The Biden administration has released the latest round of funding to clean up the nation’s school bus fleet, providing about $900 million in rebates to help school districts purchase about 3,400 clean school buses, Jeff St. reports. John for Canary Media. Almost all new buses are powered by electricity. In this and previous rounds, the government has awarded about $3 billion from a $5 billion program created by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021. Diesel buses are bad for the climate and student health, which is one reason the government encourages the switch to electric buses.

How charging rivals plan to survive Tesla’s chaos: Tesla’s competitors are taking advantage of the confusion caused by Elon Musk’s dismissal of the entire electric vehicle charging team at the company. Other charging companies have hired former Tesla employees and are moving into its properties, David Ferris reports for E&E News. EVGo and Francis Energy are among the companies looking to fill the void Tesla may leave, while Tesla has said it will continue to support and expand its charging network even in the event of layoffs.

The IRA sparked a clean energy boom, but its political impact is much less clear: President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, the Clean Energy and Climate Act, has produced results in stimulating investment but has not yet become a winning policy issue, David Gelles reports for The New York Times. With just a few months before voters decide whether to re-elect Biden, time is running out for his campaign to show how the law has led to a surge in employment and business spending.

Virginia has the largest data center market in the world. Can it also decarbonize its grid? Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest utility, forecasts that data centers will be the most important driver of energy demand growth in the state over the next 15 years. And while the utility has pledged to decarbonize Virginia’s grid by 2045, as required by state law, it has also indicated it will need to build new natural gas plants to meet demand, as Sarah Vogelsong reports for ICN. The dynamics in Virginia are similar to those in many states with data centers, but Virginia’s demand for electricity from data centers is extremely high, increasing the risk of state and utility response.

On California’s Central Coast, battery storage is on the ballot: As Erin Rode reports for ICN, there is an ongoing dispute on California’s Central Coast over whether the region should continue to allow the development of utility-scale battery storage projects to help strengthen the power grid. Opponents of the development talk about the toxicity and fire risk of lithium-ion batteries. At the same time, batteries have a significant impact on the reliability of the California grid.

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