{"id":15933,"date":"2025-10-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pushback-by-counties-on-solar-projects-is-challenging-climate-goals-colorado-officials-say\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:35:32","slug":"pushback-by-counties-on-solar-projects-is-challenging-climate-goals-colorado-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pushback-by-counties-on-solar-projects-is-challenging-climate-goals-colorado-officials-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Pushback by counties on solar projects is challenging climate goals, Colorado officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The San Juan Solar and Storage Project on Wednesday, Feb. 26, west of Farmington with the remains of the San Juan Generating Station in the upper left in the background as seen form Eco Flight. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Colorado must triple its wind generation and quintuple its solar capacity to meet 2040 clean energy targets and that will call for a lot of land \u2013 land developers say it is hard to come by in some counties.<\/p>\n

Counties make the land use rules and in some, \u201cprocedural hurdles, community opposition, land use concerns and regulatory gaps can impact projects,\u201d according to a survey done by the Colorado Energy Office.<\/p>\n

And those local land use decisions can be at odds with the state\u2019s clean energy goals, according to the energy office report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are places where there are local policies that stall or prevent clean energy projects, which we think hurts economic development and rate payers as well as have an impact on overall state energy planning goals,\u201d said Will Toor, energy office executive director.<\/p>\n

This comes in the face of growing electricity demand in Colorado and mandated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are statewide interests to consider,\u201d Toor said.<\/p>\n

Municipal and county officials, however, say counties are open to development and the report has been tailored to serve as a springboard for the Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 administration to dictate energy siting much as it has tried to do with housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen this movie before,\u201d said Kevin Bommer, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League. \u201cI know how it ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toor said the report makes no policy recommendations and is just a departure point for a \u201cvigorous discussion\u201d among stakeholders and local governments.<\/p>\n

One thing everyone agrees upon is that there is increasing electricity demand at the same time coal-fired generation is being retired to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The solution: build more clean energy projects.<\/p>\n

What energy projects need to be built<\/div>\n

An analysis done for the energy office estimates, in its most economical scenario, that Colorado will need 11,000 megawatts of wind generation, 12,000 MW of solar, 6,000 MW of four-hour batteries and 3,100 MW of 12-hour batteries, along with 8,000 MW of gas-fired capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis expansion is equivalent to adding approximately three times the current wind capacity and five times the current solar capacity by 2040,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The scenario reduces Colorado\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions 94% over 2005 levels by 2040 at a cost of $56.1 billion \u2013 to get to a 100% reduction would cost another $7.5 billion.<\/p>\n

The report estimates that photovoltaic solar will need 82,500 acres of land. Wind would have a \u201cdirect physical footprint\u201d of 17,000 acres, although the total leased land, much of it left to agriculture, will be 1.7 million acres.<\/p>\n

New transmission lines would need 10,000 acres of rights of way and battery storage 560 acres.<\/p>\n

So, all told these new installations would require 110,000 acres of land. The report notes that is 0.17% of all the land in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Development, however, doesn\u2019t fall evenly across Colorado. Existing wind farms are located in nine counties, with proposed development in a total of about 14 counties.<\/p>\n

Solar is more dispersed, but in the past four years some of the biggest photovoltaic projects have been proposed on the Western Slope. This has led a dozen counties to impose solar moratoria while they worked on solar land use regulations, with five of those still in force.<\/p>\n

About 38 counties now have solar land use regulations, rules that are sometimes restrictive, according to the energy office report.<\/p>\n

The report lists nine solar projects in nine counties that stalled due to public opposition, wildlife issues, concerns about the loss of farmland or failing to comply with local rules and plans.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Bommer said, dozens of solar projects were approved by local governments all over the state. The 140 solar facilities in Colorado cover approximately 21,000 acres.<\/p>\n

And it isn\u2019t only solar that is facing pushback. Elbert and El Paso counties have rejected Xcel Energy\u2019s proposed route for its $1.7 billion Power Pathway high-voltage transmission line.<\/p>\n

The line \u2013 a 580-mile loop through 12 counties \u2013 is designed to bring wind and solar power from the Eastern Plains to the Front Range. Xcel Energy has asked the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to use its so-called backstop power to overrule the counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe successful siting and permitting of clean energy projects have become a critical challenge,\u201d the energy office report said. \u201cRecent high-profile denials of utility-scale solar projects highlight the complex and sometimes contentious nature of local permitting processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report was required by Senate Bill 212, the 2024 law aimed at facilitating new energy projects. A draft of the bill had included state siting authority, but that was changed to a study after pushback from local governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report sort of fell a little flat,\u201d said Kelly Flenniken, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc. \u201cIt seemed antagonistic to counties for no clear reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe share the concern and the worry that there is some predetermined path,\u201d Flenniken said. \u201cShould we be keeping our eyes out for a legislative fix to this nonexistent problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

Toor, the energy office director, said there is no hidden agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not even making policy recommendations, rather doing an assessment of the current state of clean energy siting in Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

KC Becker, the executive director of Colorado Solar and Energy Storage Association, a trade group, said the industry isn\u2019t looking for statewide permitting either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould it benefit solar developers, if they have the same thing that oil and gas currently has, which is statewide permitting, sure. But we are not seeking that,\u201d Becker said. \u201cNo one\u2019s asking for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, municipal and county representatives remain wary. \u201cWe continue to be told, you know, that that\u2019s not the intent, but we\u2019re not so sure we buy that,\u201d Flenniken said.<\/p>\n

Bommer said \u201cthe report just comes out with a strong bias against local regulation of projects \u2026 and a presumption that local regulations are roadblocks and not justifiable regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a few local governments completed the survey underpinning the report<\/div>\n

One of the complaints about the report is that it is based on a lengthy survey that was completed by only a handful of local governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they spoke to a dozen counties,\u201d Flennkin said, \u201cand as you know, there\u2019s 64 of them.\u201d Eighteen municipalities were included.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis seems to indicate a desired outcome in the policy options without actually doing the work,\u201d Bommer said.<\/p>\n

The study does have its supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think they did a really good job of identifying a lot of the barriers and things that we have to overcome,\u201d said Severiano DeSoto, an energy siting policy advisor at Western Resource Advocates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really where the rubber meets the road,\u201d DeSoto said. \u201cColorado has set really high, ambitious greenhouse gas emissions goals, but we can\u2019t do that if we can\u2019t build projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Counties vary and it is only fitting that their regulations would vary as well, Flenniken said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that it should just be the same in Weld County and in Boulder County just isn\u2019t a very good argument,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact remains that in order to meet that goal, some community is going to have to host a project for a very long time, and they have to give up quite a bit in the process to get that project and give up hundreds, if not thousands, of acres,\u201d Flenniken said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to make sure that that is the right thing that the community wants,\u201d she said. \u201cThat they are balancing state goals and local goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stories of two solar projects in two counties highlighted in the report \u2013 one successful and one not \u2013 underscore issues around siting and local control.<\/p>\n

Seattle-based OneEnergy Renewables got a lease from the Colorado State Land Board on 640 acres of sagebrush and cedar on Wright\u2019s Mesa, about 30 miles northwest of Telluride, where the company planned to install a 100-MW array with thousands of solar panels and a 500-MW storage battery.<\/p>\n

When the company held a community meeting in Norwood, the mesa\u2019s one town, population 550, more than 200 mostly angry people showed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not laughing. We\u2019re pissed,\u201d one resident said, according to a news report.<\/p>\n

It turned out that the land OneEnergy had set its sights on, while having ready access to a transmission line, was also a vital patch for water resources, wildlife and the mesa\u2019s viewshed.<\/p>\n

\"OneEnergy
OneEnergy proposed building 640-acres of solar panel fields on this high desert terrain filled with sagebrush, photographed June 5, 2024, near Norwood. This area is part of the Wright\u2019s Mesa, where cattle and recreationists alike, roam with the view of the Lone Cone Peak, in background on right. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The ensuing battle spilled all the way to Telluride where the county commission imposed a moratorium on solar projects while it developed a solar land use ordinance.<\/p>\n

\u201cOneEnergy acknowledges that it entered the Norwood\/San Miguel County communities with a development and community engagement approach that worked in other communities in Colorado, but was not well-adapted for this one,\u201d the energy office report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorwood and Wright\u2019s Mesa are agricultural, even pastoral, communities that have almost no history of industrial development or industrial uses. OneEnergy states that it was not sensitive to this distinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The energy office survey, however, did not go to Norwood officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither the Town of Norwood nor any of our partner agencies were contacted or interviewed for the Colorado Energy Office report, so the Wright\u2019s Mesa example doesn\u2019t accurately reflect what took place here,\u201d Norwood Mayor Candy Meehan said in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur community\u2019s response to the OneEnergy proposal was never about opposing solar or clean energy \u2013 it was about doing it right,\u201d Meehan said. \u201cWright\u2019s Mesa relies on a single source-water system, limited fire and EMS capacity, and an agricultural landscape that has almost no history of industrial-scale development. Those realities matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 18 months, San Miguel County adopted a 43-page land use code and the moratorium was lifted in September 2024.<\/p>\n

The energy office report said some developers found the rules \u201cexceptionally lengthy and burdensome.\u201d<\/p>\n

One wildlife organization (not identified) while praising the wildlife protection measures in the code said some elements such as a limit on the number of solar facility permits granted in a five-year period and restrictions on the amount of developable prime farmland that can be used to be onerous.<\/p>\n

All of which leaves Galena Gleason, a county commissioner and Wright\u2019s Mesa resident, frustrated. The energy office staff spoke to the county planners but not the commissioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur geographic limitations were the factors that led to the standards and restrictions that are laid out in our code,\u201d Gleason said. \u201cWe\u2019re an incredibly remote county with geographic limitations. \u2026 We have the mountainous and desert landscapes, limited roads, limited emergency response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large-scale solar is not permitted on Wright\u2019s Mesa, but is allowed anywhere else in the county with some \u201creally ideal sites\u201d on the desert terrain of the county\u2019s west side, Gleason said.<\/p>\n

A number of other counties, including Mesa, Routt, Pueblo and Weld, were praised in the report for codes with \u201cclarity, conciseness, and completeness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar themes, different project outcomes<\/div>\n

The story of the Garnet Mesa solar project in Delta County had some of the same themes as Wright\u2019s Mesa, but with a very different ending.<\/p>\n

Guzman Energy, a clean energy developer and wholesaler, was set to put an 80-MW solar installation on about 470-acres of private land in the county when it ran into opposition from neighbors and worries from the county commission about the loss of farmland.<\/p>\n

In March 2022, the county commission rejected a zoning change for the parcel effectively blocking the project. Guzman Energy returned with a plan \u2013 approved by the commission \u2013 to add irrigation to the site to support grazing as many as 1,000 sheep.<\/p>\n

It is now the largest agrivoltaics project in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we learned from that project is how important it is to take into consideration the interests of the local community and be aware of the trade-offs that go into any development,\u201d said Robin Lunt, Guzman Energy\u2019s chief commercial officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolar takes about five to six acres per megawatt, so there\u2019s a lot of land use that goes along with solar, and in counties like Delta County, there\u2019s a strong history and tradition of agriculture,\u201d Lunt said.<\/p>\n

There is tension between getting a project done and taking the time to work through local issues, Lunt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be thoughtful and considered and balancing that with the speed and standardization that is often necessary for $100 million projects to advance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That, Lunt added, doesn\u2019t mean \u201clet\u2019s run roughshod through rural communities and do whatever we need to do\u201d because finance providers need to make money.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompromise always adds costs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Much of the problem stems from the way renewable energy projects are developed and how they are evaluated, Becker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot more projects being proposed than will never get built, because a lot of developers are looking at projects, looking at sites, trying to put things together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When projects are put together, including local permits, they have to bid into a utility\u2019s call for projects or find a buyer for the electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes the utility\u2019s decision about which one they are going to go with,\u201d she said. \u201cThen you have the PUC considering what amount of power we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all these different players,\u201d Becker said. \u201cOnly a fraction of the projects proposed ever get built.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, this could leave a county facing multiple project proposals, even if in the end only one or none is constructed.<\/p>\n

Twelve counties surveyed said that they had staffing challenges in dealing with the complex solar applications, while developers complained about a wide range in fees, sometimes expensive, levied by counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have chosen in the state, and maybe not even consciously, but just by default, a very decentralized process that relies on counties performing all of this work at the local level,\u201d Becker said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cities, counties say report by the Colorado Energy Office was tailored to aid the governor in dictating solar siting rules, much as he has done around housing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,1098,1426,1425],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-energy","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar-energy"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15933"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19924,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933\/revisions\/19924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15933"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}