Ohio Power Siting Board asks court to punt on high-stakes solar case

For more than a year, the Ohio Supreme Court has been set to make a landmark ruling in a case with high stakes for renewable energy development. But now, the Ohio Power Siting Board has asked the court to skip that and dismiss the case altogether.

In December 2022, the OPSB denied developer Vesper Energy’s permit application for a 175-megawatt photovoltaic installation called Kingwood Solar. The OPSB held that Kingwood Solar failed to meet its public interest requirement because local government boards opposed the project. All other criteria for issuance of a permit were met.

The developer appealed the decision in 2023. On July 1, more than three and a half years after it first denied the permit, the OPSB has filed a motion to dismiss the case because Kingwood Solar’s grid interconnection agreement has expired.

Since the project no longer has a valid interconnection agreement, it can’t immediately be built, and the board argues that this makes the whole case moot.

Even if the court rules that the OPSB must issue the state permit, the developer would need to go through grid operator PJM Interconnection’s infamously long queue all over again for the project. Progress would likely be further delayed by the need to comply with 2021’s Senate Bill 52, which took effect six months after Kingwood Solar applied for its siting permit and adds extra hurdles for siting renewables in Ohio. The law includes an option for counties to block projects before they ever get to state regulators.

Solar advocates say the board’s argument is unfair: The reason Kingwood Solar’s interconnection agreement expired is because the OPSB missed deadlines for letting the company move ahead with its appeal. And then the court took a long time to consider the case.

Beyond that, advocates note, the court’s possible failure to address the merits of Kingwood Solar’s appeal would be a major missed opportunity to clear up uncertainty around renewable energy development in Ohio.

In December 2022, the OPSB held that unanimous local government opposition was the ​“controlling” factor on whether the project failed to serve the public interest. In other words, the OPSB let the fact that the local boards didn’t want the project determine the outcome — despite the OPSB being the state regulatory agency charged with balancing the economic, environmental, and other benefits of the project.

Vesper Energy, other developers, and clean energy advocates argue that the court should not let the board deny renewable energy permits just because local governments might not like the projects.

After Kingwood Solar filed its appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court twice refused to deal with the case until the OPSB finally ruled on various motions for reconsideration — months after its legal deadlines.

Yet more delays followed after Kingwood Solar filed its third notice of appeal in October 2023. Briefing wrapped up by March 2024, but the court didn’t hear lawyers’ oral arguments until March of last year.

Eleven months later, in February 2026, Kingwood Solar urged the court to expedite its decision, noting that time was running out on its interconnection agreement. The court refused. The court still hasn’t ruled.

In response to a question about whether it would be unjust for the OPSB to seek dismissal after its own delays contributed to the missed interconnection deadline, spokesperson Matt Butler wrote via email, ​“We cannot speculate on hypotheticals regarding this matter and will let the motion speak for itself.”

Missed opportunities

Doug Herling, a vice president at energy developer Open Road Renewables, has a question for the court: ​“Why did you run out the clock?”

Herling’s company isn’t a party in Kingwood Solar, but it had cases of its own last year and this year in which the OPSB or its staff likewise deferred to local government opposition and denied permits.

Vesper Energy declined to comment at this time. Under the Ohio Supreme Court’s rules, its response to the OPSB’s dismissal motion is due by July 13, but the court could rule before then.

“The court’s delay and rejection of Kingwood’s motion for expedited ruling has complicated this case in a way that wasn’t necessary,” said Karin Nordstrom, an attorney with the Ohio Environmental Council, which has been a party in several related cases. Regardless of PJM’s deadline, though, ​“getting a resolution and clarity from the court on this issue remains a matter of great public interest,” Nordstrom said.

The potential ruling on Kingwood Solar comes at a critical time for Ohio, which is seeing growing energy demand due to data centers and other factors, coupled with rising energy costs. Despite the state’s appetite for energy, it continues to stymie renewable energy developments.

“A substantive review of the public interest, including a substantive review of the reasoning for public support and opposition, remains incredibly important, because Ohio does need more energy,” Nordstrom said. Both developers and environmental advocates ​“need Kingwood for clarity on this issue.”

Otherwise, building solar or wind projects in Ohio remains highly risky and stressful for developers.

“It just sends a message that right now it is not safe to invest in new development in this state, because what should be a three- to five-year development timeline could stretch past fairly reasonable interconnection deadlines,” Herling said. ​“No one can make an investment decision with this type of uncertainty facing you, along with the rest of the regulatory climate now facing renewables in the state.”

After SB 52 took effect, opponents of renewable energy began pushing counties not only to adopt bans against new solar and wind development, but also to oppose even ​“grandfathered” projects that were exempt from the law. Greene County and the three townships where Kingwood Solar would be built all passed resolutions against it.

Meanwhile, the OPSB diverged from its prior practices and began treating local government pushback as sufficient to deny permit applications, even though SB 52 did not alter the legal definition of ​“public interest.”

The OPSB’s decision on Kingwood Solar focused on whether government opposition was unanimous and noted when objections were vigorous, but largely ignored whether any arguments against the project were based in fact or on misinformation, resistance to change, or political pressure. The regulators failed to clarify the public interest standard when they updated their rules in 2024, despite requests from industry and environmental groups.

The Kingwood case offers an opportunity to make the law clear, if the court decides not to dismiss it.

Even if the court does dismiss the case, the issue isn’t going away: An appeal filed in March 2025 for NextEra Energy’s Circleville solar farm raised similar arguments to those in the Kingwood Solar case. There has still been no ruling in that case either, even though the Ohio Supreme Court heard oral argument more than six months ago.