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Ohio Chamber of Commerce emerges as unexpected ally for solar projects • Ohio Capital Journal [1]

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Date: 2025-02-10

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce is emerging as an unexpected ally of clean-energy advocates and solar developers who are hoping to build more projects in the state.

While the business group continues to oppose clean-energy mandates and still supports natural-gas expansion, it has become more vocal in recent years in supporting utility-scale solar projects. The Chamber sided with solar companies in two Ohio Supreme Court appeals where the Ohio Power Siting Board had denied permits, and it has intervened in other cases. Last fall, the Chamber’s president and CEO, Steve Stivers, spoke in support of the proposed Grange Solar project in west central Ohio, which faces opposition from some residents in Logan County.

The support ​“matters to remind the state, to remind regulators, that solar projects or any kind of economic development [in] Ohio is bigger than someone’s backyard, that all of this is interconnected,” said Doug Herling, vice president of Open Road Renewables, developer of the Grange Solar project.

Ohio clean-energy advocates hope support from the Ohio Chamber and other business groups will help erode a dozen years of entrenched opposition to clean energy by Republican supermajorities in the state General Assembly.

In 2014, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce aligned with investor-owned utility FirstEnergy and fossil-fuel interests as they pushed to halt the state’s modest clean-energy standards. Two years later, it supported a bill to extend the freeze indefinitely, which then-Gov. John Kasich vetoed. In 2019, the Chamber testified that its members were split on HB 6, the law at the heart of the state’s ongoing utility corruption scandal, although the Chamber supported its gutting of Ohio’s energy-efficiency standard.

Clean-energy stakeholders saw a shift begin in 2021, when the Chamber opposed SB 52, which lets counties ban new utility-scale solar projects and most wind farms in unincorporated areas. The law also gave counties and townships ad hoc votes on most solar and wind projects at the Ohio Power Siting Board.

“But no comparable limits [were] placed on natural-gas development or projects,” said Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog group that has followed energy politics in the state for years.

The changes have empowered local opponents to take stands against wind and solar projects, often based on political strategies and misinformation provided by fossil-fuel interests. Over the past 15 months, at least four Ohio solar projects have been abandoned due to site-permit challenges.

Meanwhile, the Ohio Chamber adopted a Blueprint for Ohio’s Economic Future in 2022, which identified energy as a core part of infrastructure needed for economic growth. Recent actions supporting solar development follow through on that blueprint, according to Tony Long, the Chamber’s general counsel and director of energy policy.

“We’re all in on trying to find generation sources,” Long said, citing projected growth in energy consumption over the next decade. He noted the importance of technological advances, such as improvements in solar panels, better inverters for energy storage, and grid-enhancing technologies.

The Chamber’s Ohio Supreme Court briefs supporting the Kingwood Solar and Birch Solar projects stressed their economic benefits for customers statewide in reducing wholesale energy prices and attracting employers to the state. On the flip side, project denials inject uncertainty into business decisions. More broadly, ​“continued denial of renewable project applications may jeopardize Ohio’s future economic growth and energy stability,” the Kingwood Solar brief says. (The Kingwood Solar case is set for oral argument on March 13. Lightsource bp withdrew its appeal and suspended the Birch Solar project on Jan. 9.)

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[1] Url: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/02/10/ohio-chamber-of-commerce-emerges-as-unexpected-ally-for-solar-projects/

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