Tippecanoe committee advances revised solar ordinance, adds acreage caps and stronger setbacks

The Ordinance & Bylaw Committee of the Area Plan Commission of Tippecanoe County voted April 1 to forward a revised Unified Zoning Ordinance (UZO) amendment on large-scale solar energy systems to the full APC after approving several staff-recommended edits and committee motions. Committee members also accepted county commissioners’ additions limiting total county solar acreage to 6,000 acres and capping individual projects at 400 acres with separation requirements.

The move follows months of work by a Solar Study Committee and continued public comment. Ryan O'Gara, APC executive director, and planner Nathan McBurnett presented a draft that added definitions for terms including “SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEM (SES),” “OCCUPIED STRUCTURE,” “PARTICIPATING,” and “NON-PARTICIPATING,” reorganized large-scale and community-scale sections into a new Section 4-12, and translated setback provisions into a table intended to improve clarity.

Committee members made several substantive changes during the meeting. Jackson Bogan proposed and the committee approved raising liability-insurance requirements for grid-connected generating equipment over 10 kW to a minimum of $2,000,000 per occurrence and $5,000,000 in the aggregate, allowing an umbrella or excess policy to meet the requirement. The committee also approved language requiring that decommissioning surety be transferable to any future project owner or replaced with new surety that satisfies the ordinance.

Tom Murtaugh successfully moved to remove a staff-inserted qualifier that had limited battery energy storage systems (BESS) in the SES definition to those with an aggregate capacity greater than 100 MWh; with that clause removed the draft now treats BESS separately from the SES definition pending future comprehensive BESS regulation. Murtaugh also sponsored motions that the committee approved to allow game fencing as an alternative to the 6-inch clearance welded-wire standard where livestock or similar uses would be affected and to require all SES materials to be anti-glare while keeping a numeric glare cap of 0.5 footcandles measured at nonparticipating property lines.

The committee added a new abandonment definition after hearing concerns about maintenance and storm damage: “a fully or partially constructed SES that does not generate electricity for a continuous twelve (12) month period, or any solar energy system damaged or falling into a state of disrepair for twelve consecutive months shall be deemed abandoned.” Staff said surety amounts will be reevaluated for inflation every five years and noncompliance could result in revocation of a special exception.

County commissioners provided additional direction that the committee accepted. Commissioner Tracy Brown proposed and the committee adopted a countywide 6,000-acre cap, a 400-acre per-project cap, one-mile separations between projects and tiered setback distances measured from property lines: 50 feet from rights-of-way; 500 feet from a nonparticipating property on one side; 700 feet for two sides; 1,000 feet for three sides; and 1,500 feet for properties surrounded on all four sides by a project. Staff noted that adopting those distances will require cascading edits throughout the draft ordinance.

Public comment reflected wide local disagreement about siting, farmland preservation, economic benefit, storm damage cleanup and surety adequacy, battery storage, and aesthetic or noise impacts. Kenny McCleary of the Solar Study Committee said the staff decommissioning draft was “Swiss cheese” compared with the committee’s original plan and urged replacing staff language with the committee’s version. Several farmers and representatives from Tippecanoe County Farm Bureau urged protecting productive farmland and tightening caps. By contrast, developers and some energy professionals warned that overly restrictive setbacks and bans on BESS could make utility-scale projects infeasible; Zacaria Martinez of Emergent Solar said a 400-acre project could accommodate roughly 119 megawatts and produce about 153 million kWh per year.

The committee approved the ordinance draft, including the motions adopting staff edits and the commissioners’ additions, by unanimous voice vote and will present the revised draft to the full APC at its April 15 meeting. Jackson Bogan asked staff to consider adding a percentage-based standard to the abandonment definition before that meeting; staff indicated further document edits will be needed to incorporate the commissioners’ proposals and the motions passed at the April 1 meeting.

The committee adjourned at 7:54 p.m.