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ANNAPOLIS – Caroline County leaders and farmers voiced their opposition to proposed state legislation they say threatens the Eastern Shore with “solar sprawl.”
Testifying before a joint session of the Maryland Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee and the House Economic Matters Committee Feb. 28 in Annapolis, Caroline County Commission President Travis Breeding, Vice President Larry Porter, and Eastern Shore farmers urged legislators to protect the county’s autonomy in determining solar policy.
But they are not optimistic about prevailing against a legislative agenda seemingly at odds with preserving the state’s top business of agricultural production, especially when thousands of acres of flat farmland seem more fertile for the production of solar energy.
Compounding the state’s pressure on counties to allow solar expansion and solar battery storage are large solar companies wooing farmers with enticing lucrative offers to lease their productive farmland for solar arrays close to transmission lines, such as the massive Cherrywood project between Goldsboro and Greensboro.
The nearly 6-hour hearing focused mainly on Senate Bill 931, the Renewable Energy Certainty Act (RECA), and crossfiled with House Bill 1036. Both bills are part of a comprehensive bill, the Next Generation Act.
The goal of the legislation is to advance the state’s clean energy priorities, which include renewable energy generation such as solar, wind, geothermal hydro, and even nuclear.
Sponsors said they were considering amendments suggested by the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo).
On Feb. 28, the three Commissioners posted a letter on social media to residents, along with their written testimony to the General Assembly opposing RECA.
“While we recognize the importance of renewable energy, this bill (SB 931) removes local authority over solar development and could lead to unchecked utility-scale solar expansion on prime agricultural land,” the testimony stated. “It undermines the zoning protections we’ve put in place to balance solar growth with farmland preservation and shifts critical land-use decisions away from the communities they impact the most.”
Developing those zoning protections to “ensure responsible solar development” resulted in zoning regulations for the county, which were listed in the testimony.
Solar battery storage, of particular concern to Porter, is deemed “absolutely essential” by SB 931’s sponsor, Sen. Brian Feldman (D-5-Montgomery). Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-46-Baltimore) stressed the need to “expedite” increased supply of energy, and ensure its reliability and regulatory predictability.
“Our top priority must be to expedite the construction of new cleaner energy in Maryland,” Ferguson said. “This energy must be Maryland made.”
The sponsors of HB 1036 are Del. C.T. Wilson (D-28-Charles) and Del. Brian Crosby (D-29B-St. Mary’s).
Sponsors of the bills stressed the urgency of lowering “skyrocketing prices,” according to Wilson, and lessening reliance on other states for electricity.
Maryland is one of 13 states and the District of Columbia who are served by the Eastern interconnection power grid operated by PJM Interconnection LLC, a regional transmission organization based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Lawmakers want to lessen Maryland’s reliance on PJM, which they claim has a “capacity” problem, and produce clean energy in the state.
“On top of current constraints in the Maryland grid, nine coal and oil plants in this state are planning to deactivate by 2028, representing approximately 2.5 gigawatts of lost capacity,” Wilson said.
Under HB 1036, “Counties still retain full zoning authority over projects under two megawatts, allowing local governments to regulate smaller solar projects as they see fit,” Wilson said.
When Del. Chris Adams (R-37B-Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, Wicomico) questioned that citizen engagement was being slighted, Wilson cited the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) process was still in place to hear their concerns.
“The location of any sort of energy facility – whether it's a fossil power plant, a nuclear power plant, transmission line, a solar array, a wind turbine – eventually it winds up in somebody's backyard,” said Frederick Hoover, chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission. “And quite honestly, these siting proceedings can become contentious. … The CPCN process is designed to facilitate the participation for those folks who are being directly affected by the proposed energy facility.”
Wilson said objections to solar siting would have to be more substantive than “you don’t want your neighbor to build solar on their farm.”
The Caroline Commissioners described how RECA undermines local protections regarding large-scale solar projects, including forcing counties to fast-track approvals for them; granting automatic tax exemptions, thus reducing county tax revenue for essential services; and shifting financial risks to counties when projects are decommissioned.
In a Jan. 14 letter to residents, the Commissioners warned of the cascading effect of solar sprawl. “As more land transitions out of agriculture, the demand for these supportive services erodes,” the letter concluded. “As those supportive services go out of business or consolidate, it is more difficult for remaining businesses to continue operations. If enough landowners convert their land to solar, it could significantly impact those who choose to keep their land in agriculture.”
Those who testified in favor of the proposed bill and the comprehensive package of four bills called the Next Generation Act touted the benefits.
Hoover called energy storage batteries the “holy grail” in the matrix of power adequacy solutions.
“While some people have discounted them, batteries really are, in a sense, the Holy Grail on this, because traditionally, you had to have the generation capacity to meet whatever the demand was going to be at a particular time,” Hoover said. “Well, now we have a situation where you can actually make electricity at certain parts of the day and use it other parts of the day by utilizing batteries.”
In 2023, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation establishing the Maryland Energy Storage program, “setting very ambitious targets for the cost-effective deployment of new energy storage devices over the next several years,” Feldman said. He noted “emerging battery storage technology that acts as a failsafe backstop during short times of peak energy demand” and cited Texas as an example of the fastest growing state for solar in the nation.
However, Feldman continued, “unlike states like Texas, we do not have sufficient land mass to easily generate thousands of megawatts of electricity through land-based wind, hydro or geothermal pump power. And so, with that kind of constrained land mass, siting and permitting issues take on greater significance.”
While Feldman said the General Assembly has “immense respect” for local county government, “we all have to be mindful of creating unnecessary regulatory roadblocks to deploying energy.”
Siting and permitting requirements by local governments is a “primary choke-point getting renewable energy projects built, but they cannot have de facto veto authority over our attempts at the state level to increase our supply of in-state energy to address our resource adequacy challenges,” Feldman said.
Although earlier in the hearing a witness testified that only 1% of the state’s agricultural land would be dedicated to solar siting, Breeding said, “Caroline County is fast approaching 2% and this bill will kick the door wide open for that development to happen even faster.”
Breeding urged that more local control was needed so that “prime ag land does not get consumed by solar.”
Representing several generations of Caroline County farmers, North Caroline High School student Kaylyn Jones, said her father, uncle and grandfather’s nine farms “are all within two miles of transmission lines.”
“If this bill passes, companies will use eminent domain to take away my family's right to farm and either put panels on it or put cable directly through the center of it,” Jones said.
Wilson said he wanted to assure Jones “there is no eminent domain. … nobody's land’s getting taken by the government or by business.”
Tyler Hough, director of government relations with the Maryland Farm Bureau testified against the bills.
“By removing local oversight, this legislation will pave the way for widespread displacement of prime agriculture land, forcing farmers to compete with industrial scale solar and energy storage projects for limited space,” Hough said. “Additionally, this bill fails to recognize the need for balanced, community driven renewable energy solutions that work in harmony with agriculture, rather than replacing it.”
Hough suggested prioritizing “solutions such as agrivoltaics, where renewable energy is paired with agricultural production, not an imposed blanket policy that ignore the needs for farmers in rural communities or communities,
“Prime and productive soil is the one resource that we cannot replace,” Hough said. “Without this soil, we don't have farms. Without farms, we don't have food.”
Battery storage concerns
Porter has consistently raised concerns in the past about battery storage, both in county commissioners’ meetings and at previous Maryland General Assemblies.
In their written testimony, the County Commissioners warned of the potential dangers associated with large-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS), “which currently lack sufficient local and state regulations.”
Batteries leaking and contaminating groundwater and soil, and thermal runaway incidents, which could burn for days and release toxic fumes, could set up a hazardous situation which require specialized firefighting techniques “that most local fire departments are not yet trained or equipped to handle,” the Commissioners’ testimony stated.
At the hearing, Porter reiterated the county’s concerns about battery storage and the need to train local firefighters who would be on the front lines of responding to an emergency.
MACo President Jack Wilson, a Queen Anne’s County commissioner, also testified that “public safety has to be a priority. Large scale battery storage facilities present serious fire hazards, toxic fumes and hazardous waste risks. Without adequate local oversight and fire safety regulations, we are jeopardizing the very communities we seek to power.”
MACo Director of Intergovernmental Relations Dominic Butchko echoed Jack Wilson’s concerns, along with other issues that he hoped would result in amendments to the bills.
Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-20-Montgomery) asked Butchko if he was familiar with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)885 standards for mitigating energy storage systems incidents. Butchko said he was concerned with what wasn’t included in the legislation and the confusion that may result.
Feldman said that both he and C.T. Wilson were “keenly aware of some of the concerns that have been raised by many of our local jurisdictions about this piece of legislation, and we are working on a number of amendments to address those concerns.”
On March 5, MACo announced, “While counties oppose RECA in its current form, significant progress has been made on amendments, and counties are eagerly awaiting the bill reprint.”
