Baltimore County Council passed a bill that echoes a national trend in local governments grappling with statewide bills that prohibit their power from saying no to solar.
Across many states, a push and pull is taking place between state legislators. On one hand, some want to meet rising electric demand, while on the other hand, some propose local ordinance maneuvers to thwart clean energy development.
Baltimore’s County Council was closely watching Maryland’s state lawmakers this legislative session. The council planned to kill a resident’s plans for a small solar project on 33 of their 47 acres by passing legislation prohibiting solar projects from being built within 1,000 feet of each other. However, according to Baltimore Public Media, the council decided to delay the final vote so they could review an omnibus energy package that was undergoing heavy debates and amendments by state lawmakers.
On April 7, Maryland’s senate passed the sweeping energy package, and in it, the Renewable Energy Certainty Act. This Act clamps down on local governments sidestepping around the Maryland Public Service Commission, which has the sole authority to approve or deny utility-scale solar projects, by creating zoning restrictions to halt solar and energy storage projects from being developed.
After some push and pull throughout the session, the state’s amended bill will return decision-making power to local governments for solar projects once more than 5% of the county’s land of designated priority protection areas are converted to solar.
As it was designed to do, the Renewable Energy Certainty Act would stop the Baltimore County Council from passing ordinances to kill certain solar projects. Because of the new state legislation, the councilmen determined they would no longer be able to thwart the resident’s solar project.
“However, we do have the ability to regulate at the 1 megawatt power level or below,” Councilman David Marks (R) said during the meeting. “That’s basically all we now have jurisdiction over.”
The bill, which passed unanimously, was first introduced by two of the three Republicans on the seven-man council, Marks and Wade Kach. Councilman Kach previously proposed and then dropped a moratorium of solar projects in 2018. The following year, the council settled on regulations to limit solar projects under 2 MW. The state regulates installations above 2 MW. The regulations include the height of the panels, the number of solar projects per district (10), the distance the projects must be from property lines, and the types of buffers required to hide the panels from the neighbors’ view.
The bill originally required a 1,000 foot buffer for solar project, but Councilman Marks dropped it down to 300 feet because “honestly, I would like to get a bill that can pass to be very frank.”
“We want to make sure we’re putting in regulations and controlling what we have the authority to control. We also don’t want to stifle opportunities for potential farmers and for folks that could benefit from solar,” Young said.
Kach withdrew a second bill during the meeting to prevent solar projects from being developed on prime farmland. However, he said he plans to reintroduce it if Gov. Moore signs off for the new state law.
Gov. Wes Moore has until May 27 to sign or veto the new legislation or it will become law by default.
When asked about it recently, he was noncommittal, telling the Baltimore Banner,
