By Elizabeth Weise, Suhail Bhat | USA TODAY
As wind turbines get more efficient and solar panels more affordable, wind and solar plants have grown rapidly.
Efforts to block them have grown rapidly, too, especially since 2021.
USA TODAY’s analysis found 15% of counties nationwide now have some impediment to new utility-scale wind and solar energy.
Gauging those impediments required researching a variety of local rules including outright bans, zoning restrictions, specialized land-use rules or political stonewalls. It also required setting a standard as to which restrictions are restrictive enough to count.
“The local governments that are doing it best are the ones that evaluate each solar or wind project on its merits and decide if the rezoning request is the right use in the right place. Bans are silly when a local government can simply reject projects that are in the wrong place and approve projects that are well located.” -Court Rich, Rose Law Group co-founder and director of renewable energy
