As the federal government is ramping up support for renewable energy through subsidies and mandates, local opposition continues to bring rejection of renewables, particularly at the county and city levels.
Robert Bryce, an energy researcher and author, recently reported there have been 735 rejections of wind and solar development across the United States. Most of these are at the local level. Bryce has been tracking the rejections since 2015.
“You won’t read much about this in major media outlets, but nearly every week, local communities across the US are rejecting or restricting solar and wind projects,” wrote Bryce. “I am being contacted almost weekly by people across the country who are fighting wind projects, solar projects, battery facilities, or high-voltage transmission lines.”
The rejections span much of the country. In 2024, there have been 97 rejections in 24 states. Ohio leads the nation with 36 rejections, 19 solar and 17 wind. Virginia is next with eight rejections of solar. Iowa rejected wind six times and solar once. And Pennsylvania rejected solar six times. Some of the rejections were for specific renewable projects, others were general bans on renewable development.
Ohio has a mix of both. In 2021, the Ohio Legislature passed, without a single Democrat vote, S.B. 52, which gave Ohio counties the power to veto specific projects or make themselves off-limits to renewable energy development altogether. Many of the rejections in Ohio are counties following the requests of cities and townships to ban wind or solar within their boundaries.
There was a drastic increase in rejections starting in 2022. This is the same year that President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which dramatically increased subsidies for renewable energy, particularly solar. Bill Peacock, the policy director at the Energy Alliance, recently released a study quantifying the subsidies in the IRA.
“There is no question that the federal government–not benefits from renewables–is driving the increase in new projects and in local rejections,” said Peacock.
According to Peacock, from 2010 to 2019, federal renewable subsidies totaled $74 billion. In the current decade, renewable subsidies are expected to more than triple to $244 billion, due largely to the IRA.
The increase in subsidies has led to a boom in newly-proposed renewable energy projects and a boom in rejections. In the three years prior to the IRA, rejections in the U.S. averaged only 46 per year. Beginning in 2022, they have averaged 130.
Many residents in other states are also struggling with increased development of renewable projects. “In Arkansas, local residents are fighting the Nimbus Wind project. In Shasta County, California, locals have been fighting the Fountain Wind project for years. In Wisconsin, Christiana residents, including John Barnes and Roxann Engelstad, are fighting the Koshkonong Solar project,” wrote Bryce.
