‘Green’ energy making way to red-state Midwest

The greening of red-state America, well underway in the Sun Belt, is now accelerating in the Midwest. Ohio and Indiana — two Republican-led U.S. states long dependent on coal power — are on the verge of solar-farm booms so staggering that their respective buildouts between now and 2027 may vie with Nevada’s and trail only those of California and Texas.

Developers are expected to install 15 gigawatts’ worth of new photovoltaic panels in the two states, enough to power about 12 million households. That’s happening even as Ohio has moved to slow, if not thwart, renewable energy projects.

No Republican members of Congress — a group that includes the majority of members from Indiana and Ohio — voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s climate law that ushered in hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives for clean energy.

Red states stand to reap the gains regardless: “When you look at renewable energy, the reddest Republican areas are the ones that are benefiting the most,” said Nick Cohen, chief executive of Doral Renewables, which is building what will be one of the largest U.S. solar projects, a $1.6 billion complex in the Hoosier State.

The low cost of solar power, and the promise of construction and manufacturing jobs, are indeed winning over communities in the Midwest that may not be predisposed to the climate benefits. It helps that Ohio and Indiana feature flat farmland that’s ideal for tracking the arc of the sun. Another impetus is coming from large electricity customers, including tech giants and manufacturers, which are demanding that clean energy help power their data centers and factories.

While Indiana doesn’t require that any of its power come from renewable sources, the state is finding that it can cultivate the sun as it does soybeans. “You’re seeing a state like Indiana really punch way above its weight class” in solar farms, Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, told Bloomberg Green’s podcast Zero in January. “We’re a small state, relatively speaking, but we have a lot of land, which is required.”

Across both states there are 23 development-stage projects that would each generate more than 300 megawatts of power, according to data from BloombergNEF, a clean energy research group. A 300-megawatt farm is about half the capacity of a typical natural gas-fired power plant, but sizable by the standards of U.S. solar.

Today, utility-scale solar in Ohio costs less than half the price tag of an efficient natural gas-fired plant, including tax credits for renewables, said Amar Vasdev, an analyst at BNEF. In Indiana, solar is more than a third cheaper.

But barriers persist in Ohio. Despite utility companies such as AES and American Electric Power pushing to modernize their networks with clean power and major employers exerting pressure, the state in the past decade has imposed various impediments to renewable energy development.

“Ohio is doing a good job of attracting large-scale employers and manufacturing, but those investments are going to need in-state renewables, which is becoming harder to permit,” said Cyrus Tashakkori, president of Open Road Renewables, a company developing large projects in the state.

Ohio’s Republican leadership has tried to prop up coal and nuclear plants that have struggled to compete with solar, wind and natural gas. In 2019, the state passed a controversial law to bail out nuclear plants and scale back a minimum renewable requirement. The bill wound up at the crux of what federal prosecutors say is the largest corruption case in state history. It included utility giant FirstEnergy admitting that it conspired with public officials and others to pay millions of dollars in bribes toward the law’s passage. The legislator at the center of the case, ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, is on trial in federal court in Cincinnati.

Perhaps most concerning for the solar industry: a rule that empowers local communities to reject solar plants and designate areas where projects aren’t permitted.

Roy Klopfenstein, a newly elected state representative in Ohio representing Paulding County, said he supported some renewables projects when he was a local official. But Klopfenstein, a Republican, said he still worries that the solar boom coupled with the closure of coal plants leaves the state vulnerable to power shortages at sunset and on cloudy days. “It should be about what the constituents want,” he said of the siting of solar farms. “Each community is different. I am a supporter first of property rights.”

Trying to avoid local rejections can make development more arduous. Some developers are facing complaints from residents about how solar panels would change the look and use of the landscape.

Jane Harf, executive director of Green Energy Ohio, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable energy, said solar has to clear a bar in Ohio that other land uses don’t have to meet. Whereas neighbors could stop a farmer from adding solar panels, “if he suddenly wanted a hog farm, they couldn’t stop him — and a hog farm is a lot more offensive to neighbors.”