Sedgwick County commissioners could adopt a new slate of restrictions this week that significantly limit where industrial solar farms can be built and how much space they can take up.
The new plan would reduce the allowable height of solar structures from 35 feet to 25 feet and prohibit energy conversion technology within 250 feet of any dwelling unit not owned by someone participating in the project.
The only prospective solar project in Sedgwick County, the proposed 750-acre Chisholm Trail Solar Energy Center between Maize and Colwich, would be automatically disqualified under the most restrictive plan presented by Planning Director Scott Wadle last week because of its location in the cities’ urban growth areas.
Increased demand for renewable energy has rocketed U.S. solar production from 2.6 gigawatts of energy in 2010 to 177 gigawatts in 2023. But Kansas lags behind most other states in solar production, with the Solar Energy Industries Association ranking the Sunflower State 44th in the U.S. despite receiving an impressive 128 days of sunlight a year on average.
Butler, Harvey, Franklin, Osage and Reno Counties have all banned industrial-scale solar projects outright. Indefinite moratoriums on solar developments are in place in Linn and McPherson, and Coffey County’s will remain in place through 2026. Douglas and Johnson counties have limited the size of commercial solar developments to 1,000 and 2,000 acres, respectively.
The largest solar plant now operating in the state is a 144-acre development managed by Sunflower Electric Power Corporation in Russell County that started generating power in 2020. Another 140-acre Sunflower Electric plant in Russell County is set to come online in January 2025, and the energy co-op is planning a 1,000-acre facility near Dodge City.
What would new restrictions do?
The new solar restrictions, like those adopted in 2019 when Sedgwick County banned commercial wind farms , would not prevent private citizens from installing solar panels at their own homes or businesses.
They would classify small solar projects as 10 acres or less, medium projects as between 10 and 50 acres, and large projects as more than 50 acres. Any proposed development seeking to build on more than 1,280 acres would be automatically disqualified.
All solar projects would require a conditional use permit, ultimately leaving it up to the County Commission to approve or deny them. Applications would have to include the following:
Site plan
Plan for removal and storage of damaged panels and other components
Solar glare hazard analysis
Environmental assessment
Decommissioning and reclamation plan
Additionally, medium- and large-scale solar project applications would have to include the following:
Concept plan
Detailed project narrative
Grading plan
Construction plan
Landscape plan
Visual impact analysis
Community impact assessment
Traffic and transportation assessment
Large-scale projects could not be built on any unincorporated county land that falls into a city’s urban growth area, with an exception for underground transmission or collection lines.
Medium- and large-scale projects would also be prohibited within two miles of another medium- or large-scale farm’s project boundary.
Groundwater testing would be required every five years while the solar farm operates. Within 12 months of any solar energy conversion system ceasing to produce power, all equipment would have to be removed, regardless of how deep it is buried. Afterward, the ground would have to be regraded and reseeded to natural condition.
Some of the solar restrictions in the zoning proposal came as recommendations from the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission in February after collecting residents’ feedback from an open house and online survey. Others come from a consultant report produced by Berkley Group, a Virginia-based firm hired by the county to give guidance based on industry standards of how other communities have regulated solar energy production.
Two of the more restrictive recommendations, the 1,280-acre size limit and the prohibition on projects within cities’ urban growth areas, came from planning staff, not the consultant report. Wadle, the planning director, said those limitations could still be lifted or adjusted based on the will of commissioners.
“It’s really kind of a placeholder, a starting point for the conversation for some of those items to see from the public and from the County Commission about whether that is a good fit for the community,” Wadle said.
Because the most thorough slate of restrictions combining MAPC recommendations, consultant recommendations and additional planning staff recommendations hasn’t gone back to MAPC for review, adopting it on Wednesday would require four of five commissioners’ votes. Adopting the less restrictive MAPC proposal would require three votes.
Chisholm Trail project
The proposed Chisholm Trail Solar Energy Center between Maize and Colwich would not be viable if the County Commission chose to adopt the new zoning standards as proposed.
Meredith Abdou, vice president of renewable development at Invenergy, told The Eagle that would negate the company’s planned $200 million investment in Sedgwick County.
“Invenergy began developing Chisholm Trail Energy Center when local landowners signed lease agreements with our project immediately following Sedgwick County’s adoption of its 2019 solar ordinance,” Abdou said in an email.
“Invenergy has invested five years of development work and millions of dollars in upfront costs in the Chisholm Trail project, while our participating landowners have invested their time and energy in this ordinance review process. These landowners have relied on the income this solar project will generate for their families because they also relied on the solar regulations adopted in 2019.”
Abdou said Invenergy’s project would help keep some landowners involved in the venture from having to give up land that has been passed down from generation to generation for two centuries.
“The lease payments from Chisholm Trail Solar Energy Center will also help our landowners retain family ownership of their farms, some of which have been passed down since the 1800s, and long before the neighboring cities moved into their proximity,” Abdou said.
Commissioner David Dennis, whose district includes the proposed development, told a representative from the company at the Aug. 7 meeting that the county can’t afford to make decisions based on how they would affect Invenergy and the property owners who have signed up to lease their land.
“What we’re looking at is not one project today,” Dennis said. “We’re looking at what is best for Sedgwick County.”
Commissioner Jim Howell put it even more bluntly.
“I’m sorry that there may be some financial exposure to your company, but you knew that these (comprehensive) regulations were not in place,” Howell said. “I would caution any actual projects to understand there’s risk by investing anything before regulations are in place. That’s not going to change a thing we do here.”
The substation near the ethanol plant in the Colwich area is one of only three quality points of interconnection for utility-scale solar to connect to the electrical grid in Sedgwick County, Abdou said. The others are near the former Vulcan Chemicals plant south of Wichita near Haysville, and the Buffalo Flats Substation north of Garden Plain.
Wadle said of those three hookups, only Buffalo Flats is not in a city’s urban growth area, meaning any company hoping to produce and distribute electricity from solar power would have to set up its operation in proximity to that substation or invest in the underground infrastructure to connect to one of the other two.
“It is important to note that another option is that the solar companies can also extend a connection from a substation within the urban areas of influence to a location outside of it. In that way, not every company would need to connect to that one substation,” Wadle said.
Dennis stressed that even with the limitation on projects within urban growth areas, there are still hundreds of thousands of acres of unincorporated county land where developers could apply to build solar farms.
What do people have to say?
Fifteen speakers signed up to share their thoughts on solar zoning at the Aug. 7 County Commission meeting. A narrow majority favored heavily restricting or banning industrial solar developments outright.
Rene Dysart, who lives in Maize, said solar panels are an eyesore.
“I look at the backdrop of the slides on the screen and I think, would I like to look out my window at that solar farm on my landscape? Would I like to drive down the road and look across the horizon and see that? I would not,” Dysart said.
Amy Siple, who lives north of Bentley, said it would be immoral to ignore the conditions that solar panels and their components are produced in, including documented cases in China of Uyghur Muslims working in forced labor camps and abysmal conditions for cobalt miners in the Congo.
In 2021, the Biden administration banned imports of solar materials from a major Chinese firm accused of using forced labor. China still produces over half of the world’s solar panels, and significantly higher rates of components within those panels, 2022 data shows.
Jennifer Connelly, who lives between Benton and Greeenwich, said many farmers are struggling to make a living cultivating their land. The opportunity to sign leasing agreements with solar companies could be the difference between staying on their land or selling it, she said.
According to a Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture survey from June, 69% of farmers who have discussed solar leasing in the last six months were offered at least 1,000 per acre per year.
“That’s almost like winning the lottery if you’re a small farmer, and we’re telling by over-regulating that we cannot let these farmers have some kind of income to pass on to their families,” Connelly said.
Mark Bergkamp, a farmer in southwest Sedgwick County, said his family has been approached by multiple solar companies over the last five years. In his estimation, the proposal commissioners will be asked to vote on is too restrictive.
“To just outlaw the size, the scope, if you’re in an urban growth area and not have any room for discussion in the future, I just would like that to be taken into consideration,” Bergkamp said. “Because there are bad places to place it and there are good places, but to just outlaw it kind of takes away everything.”
Community members hoping to address the County Commission before their vote on solar zoning Wednesday morning can sign up to do so in person at the Ruffin building before the meeting starts at 9 a.m.
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