In rural Michigan, farmers are divided over large solar installations

FOWLERVILLE – Differing opinions on large-scale solar energy projects are causing conflict among neighbors in rural Livingston County.

Last November, the Legislature passed climate bills requiring utilities to generate 60% of their energy from renewable sources, including solar and wind, by 2035 and 100% from state-approved clean energy sources by 2040.

To achieve those goals, the legislation authorized the state to lift local bans on large renewable energy projects. Several municipalities have blocked solar and wind projects statewide in recent years.

Opinions about photovoltaic farms in the district are divided.

Jacob Fyrciak, a fourth-generation farmer from Conway Township, said his family farm, Fyrciak Farms, was approached by a solar developer.

“It seemed like a good idea at first,” Fyrciak said.

However, after reviewing the contract template, Fyrciak found that many of the provisions were unclear and enough of them were problematic to make him think twice.

And when the neighboring farms, from which he rejected lease offers for photovoltaic installations, his farm was no longer of interest to DTE Energy, he added.

“They want neighboring parcels and they want big parcels,” Fyrciak said. “When other parcels refused, it just cut us off. Which, given the public opinion, we weren’t particularly sad about.”

Emotions are running high around solar farms in Livingston County, and controversial public meetings have been held in many municipalities.

Fyrciak said there was a lot of debate in Conway Township and many more people showed up at the township council meeting than usual when solar farms were on the agenda.

“We had to move the project from our local town hall to a school lecture hall to accommodate the appropriate number of people,” Fyrciak said, and most attendees opposed the solar projects.

Opinions have become so polarized that some are reluctant to speak publicly. One farmer declined to be interviewed, citing concerns about political and social backlash if identified.

Other farmers and local officials did not respond to requests for interviews.

Local opposition has impacted renewable energy projects in the area.

“We’ve really seen a slowdown, especially with wind power in Michigan,” said Carlee Knott, energy and climate policy coordinator at the Michigan Environmental Council.

“Developers will identify farmers who want their buildings built on those sites, and then they will have problems with disinformation campaigns,” Knott said.

The regulations, Knott said, “turned out to be a pretty good compromise between what developers wanted, what local governments wanted and what environmentalists wanted.”

“Some of the changes that were made to improve the situation for local governments were to give them priority in approving permits,” she said.

Under the new guidelines, for smaller projects and local ordinances that are no more restrictive than state laws, developers will work directly with local government rather than the state, Knott said.

This is often preferred by developers because the state process can take much longer to complete.

Knott said if local governments have more stringent permitting laws than the state, developers would be able to work with the Public Utilities Commission to navigate the permitting process.

Consumers Energy and DTE Energy, two of Michigan’s largest utilities, are working to meet the state’s renewable energy goals.

“We have a really aggressive goal of bringing 8,000 megawatts of solar power online by 2040,” said Tracy Wimmer, media relations specialist for Consumers Energy.

“Now that we can see in real time the impact of extreme weather events as they increase in frequency and severity, not only on society as a whole, but on the power grid in particular, this is the direction we need and want to move,” she said.

As for local concerns about losing farmland to large-scale solar projects, “even if we had every acre we needed to get to the 8,000 megawatts we need, it would be less than 1% of all the farmland in Michigan,” Wimmer said.

John Freeman, executive director of the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, said opponents of solar projects intentionally spread disinformation in communities where large-scale solar projects are proposed.

“We need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, both locally and at a larger level,” Freeman said.

Referring to local opposition to solar projects, Freeman said: “Farming isn’t particularly sexy. Young people are moving away, the economics of being a farmer aren’t good,” he said. “But renting solar or wind can make the economics work.”

Fyrciak said: “Ultimately, this is a business transaction for the farmer. It’s private property,” and farmers should be able to make decisions about their land.

This article is a collaboration between CNS, the Detroit Free Press, the Michigan State University School of Journalism and the American Communities Project to tell the stories of voters, their experiences and political motivations in communities across the state.

This article is reprinted pursuant to a syndication agreement concluded with Michigan Bridge. Michigan Bridge is the largest nonprofit news service in Michigan and one of the leading and largest nonprofit providers of citizen news in the country. Their reporting is unbiased, factual and data-driven. Find them online at https://www.bridgemi.com/.