Ohio Capital Journal outlines the strengthening opposition to renewable developments, quoting J.R. Tolbert about the complex siting and permitting process, as well as the importance of selling the merits of renewables. 

Across the country — from suburban Virginia, rural Michigan, southern Tennessee and the sugar cane fields of Louisiana to the coasts of Maine and New Jersey and the deserts of Nevada — new renewable energy development has drawn heated opposition that has birthed, in many cases, bans, moratoriums and other restrictions.

With states, corporations, utilities and the federal government setting aggressive renewable energy goals, as well as big tax incentives such as in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, wind and solar developers have been pushing projects that are igniting fierce battles over property rights, loss of farmland, climate change, aesthetics, the merits of renewable power and a host of other concerns. 

J.R. Tolbert, vice president of strategy and partnerships at Advanced Energy United, a trade association representing wind and solar developers, as well as energy efficiency, battery storage companies and other businesses, said local opposition is becoming a major obstacle.

“The siting issue in and of itself is an issue that is really important for us to address,” Tolbert said. “If we’re unable to site projects, then we’re unable to interconnect projects and we’re unable to deliver that energy.”

Tolbert says renewable energy companies need to build a “bigger tent” to help sell communities on the merits of projects. “We need to make this as an industry about workforce development, putting people to work, delivering money that can come into your community to help pay for schools, fire and EMS and for all the programs communities need,” he said.

Developers also want regulatory certainty, he said, calling for more states to follow Illinois’ lead in setting statewide standards for wind and solar siting, an end run around the type of local opposition that snarled projects even in deep blue states.

“The reality is oftentimes what happens is a developer gets into the process, invests hundreds of thousands or millions in the process and a county can at the last moment change the rules on them,” Tolbert said. “That’s a process that isn’t fair.”

Read the full article here.