The GOP lost its iron grip on Ohio. What’s the outlook for clean energy?

Democrats have finally managed to gain footing in Ohio’s halls of power — a shift that bodes well for clean energy in a state that’s become particularly hostile toward solar and wind.

Last week, voters ended Republicans’ 15-year-long trifecta in Ohio, picking Democrat Amy Acton to be their next governor (and the first woman elected to that office). While the GOP still controls the state House and Senate, Democrats won enough seats to break Republicans’ supermajority in the House, meaning the party can no longer unilaterally override the governor’s vetoes.

From 2011 until now, Republican control of all three branches of state government has increasingly favored the oil and gas industry while limiting the growth of renewable power and scaling back energy-efficiency standards. 

Acton campaigned on a different vision. Her affordability plan pledged to promote ​“the lowest-cost and cleanest sources of energy readily available” and to reinstate energy efficiency measures, renewable portfolio standards, and demand response programs, which incentivize customers to reduce or shift their energy consumption when the grid is strained. 

In a Substack post last month, Acton wrote, ​“Ohio politicians have made it nearly impossible to advance zero marginal cost generation such as wind and solar,” so most of the state’s electricity comes from higher-cost fossil-fuels. ​“I will reexamine these obstacles that, in the long run, hit Ohio families in their pocketbooks.” 

The question is what Acton can actually do to move the needle. 

The main obstacle to utility-scale solar over the past five years has been a 2021 law, Senate Bill 52, that lets counties ban almost all such new projects within their territories. Even without an outright ban, counties can block most projects before a developer can proceed with a permit application at the state level. SB 52 also applies to wind farms of 5 megawatts or more, though almost all proposals for large-scale wind projects stopped after a 2014 budget law more than doubled the distance that turbines must be from neighboring property lines. 

Over a third of Ohio counties have now designated large swaths of land as off-limits to renewables under SB 52. Acton can’t change that law and others on her own, since doing so requires legislative action.

Still, clean energy advocates are optimistic that the new governor will be able to knock down some roadblocks. 

“It’s a brand-new day here,” said Neil Waggoner, Midwest manager for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, who’s based in central Ohio.

Very soon, Acton will choose leaders for various regulatory agencies, subject to confirmation by the Ohio Senate. Those include the directors of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the departments that deal with health, natural resources, agriculture, and development. The Ohio EPA handles permits for fossil-fuel plants and other polluting facilities, while the Ohio Department of Natural Resources decides matters dealing with hydraulic fracturing, injection wells, and coal mining.

Most notably for energy, those five agency directors will make up a majority of the voting members of the Ohio Power Siting Board, which issues permits for electric generation projections and other energy infrastructure. The board has seven standing voting members; the other two are the chair of the Public Utility Commission of Ohio and a member that represents the public. 

Acton will eventually get to pick those last two members, too. The utility commission’s current chair, Jenifer French, can stay on as a regulator there until 2029, but the governor can at any time designate a different chair, who will then also head up the Power Siting Board. The term for the current public member ends in 2030.

Those personnel swaps could make Ohio friendlier to clean energy developers. In recent years, the siting board and its staff have mainly deferred to local governments on whether a solar or wind project is in the public interest. That has allowed the mere existence of local government opposition to derail projects, even when objections lack factual support or have been addressed by the developer. 

Miranda Leppla, who heads the environmental law clinic at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said she hopes the new board will take a genuinely broad view of the public interest, including a more critical examination of energy projects’ health and environmental impacts and the costs of climate change. 

Acton will also appoint at least four of the Public Utilities Commission’s five members during her term, as their tenures come to an end. That agency is tasked with making sure Ohioans have reliable, affordable utility service. Leppla said new members could push utilities to embrace energy efficiency and demand response and pursue more equitable service across their territories. 

At the legislature

While Acton cannot enact laws on her own, her election could force Republicans in the legislature to compromise more on energy policy.

“The majorities in the House and Senate are going to have to work with the governor,” Waggoner said. ​“That’s a good thing. That’s the way government is supposed to work.” 

Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, ranking minority member on the current House Energy Committee, said he expects there will be some cooperation and actual movement toward the ​“all-of-the-above strategy that at least Republicans have given lip service to these last couple of years.” Otherwise, nothing would get done.

Even if the legislature won’t abolish SB 52’s terms for letting counties ban solar and wind, Republicans will no longer be able to unilaterally override Acton if she vetoes bills to further restrict solar, wind, or energy efficiency.

“It would be fantastic to make sure we can’t go further down the path of promoting fossil fuels at the expense of different types of clean energy that could save Ohioans money and could do wonders for the impacts of climate change,” Leppla said. 

However, there’s still the lame-duck session to get through.

One proposal, House Bill 1024, would shift authority for review of thousands of agency rules and processes from the governor to lawmakers — essentially letting them undo regulations without having to amend the law or risk Acton’s veto. Republican Rep. Jamie Callender introduced the bill last month, shortly before the election; he was also a primary sponsor of 2019’s House Bill 6, the coal and nuclear bailout law that gutted Ohio’s clean energy standards and is at the heart of the state’s ongoing utility-corruption saga. 

Another gambit, House Joint Resolution 11, proposes making the governor’s veto power meaningless by letting simple majorities override it. Introduced days after Acton’s election, it would place the issue before voters as a constitutional amendment next year. 

Meanwhile, lawmakers could try to ram through some energy bills before the new year. Senate Bill 294, which the Ohio Senate passed in June, may make building solar and wind even more difficult by specifying a minimum capacity factor of 50%. Capacity factor refers to the ratio between actual electricity production and maximum output if a source runs continuously. Federal data shows the average capacity factor is around 24% for U.S. solar farms and 34% for wind, meaning Ohio’s law could essentially force developers to add batteries — along with costs and complexity — to their projects to meet the 50% threshold

Another proposal, House Bill 862, would let utilities own nuclear plants — and possibly stick consumers with part of the costs. That would run counter to a 2025 law that generally bars regulated electric utilities from owning generation and passing costs on to customers in what is supposed to be a competitive market.

Other draft bill language circulated this week would also keep coal plants open, even if the owner has signed a contract agreeing to close a facility or convert it to natural gas. Most imminently, that could force a large unit at the Cardinal power plant in eastern Ohio to stay open, even though the group that runs it is bound to shutter the facility by 2028 under a 2015 settlement deal prior owner American Electric Power made with the Sierra Club. 

Much then could depend not only on Acton’s plans for next year, but also on what happens between now and New Year’s Eve, when the legislative session ends. Nonetheless, Rader is optimistic that the election results will lead to more renewables coming online in Ohio. 

“Let’s put all energy on an equal footing,” he said.