The headline is a definitive paragraph in a report of the farmland vs solar farm land use question -
Public hearing on Harvey Solar project shows divided Hartford-area community
Kent Mallett
Newark AdvocateLIBERTY TOWNSHIP — An Ohio Power Siting Board public hearing Monday night at Northridge High School showed a community divided over a proposed 350-megawatt solar project in northwest Licking County.
About 80 supporters and opponents of the Open Road Renewables’ application for the Harvey Solar project voiced their views for more than four hours, with each speaker limited to five minutes.
The company, based in Austin, Texas, proposes a solar-powered electric generation facility on 1,880 acres scattered throughout a 2,630-acre area in Hartford and Bennington townships, with about 1 million solar panels connected to American Electric Power’s Croton substation about a mile north of Hartford, on Clover Valley Road.
If its application is approved, the company expects construction to begin during the fourth quarter of this year and completed in the fourth quarter of 2023. The facility would be put into service in late 2024.
Those who support the project cited landowner rights, energy independence, jobs, money for local schools, less reliance on tax revenue, reduced runoff from farms and a better land use than a housing subdivision.
Those who opposed the project said they are concerned about a loss of prime farmland, impact on property values, unsightly views, environmental effects, secrecy while recruiting landowners, a divided community, and Ohio is too cloudy for it to succeed.
The properties extend to the Licking County-Delaware County line to the west, the Licking County-Knox County line to the north, Westley Chapel Road to the south and Dutch Cross Road to the east. There are no properties south of Bennington Chapel Road.
[links in original, bolding added] This is not one of the token installations that show up from place to place in Minnesota as trial proof-of-concept solar. This is a big-time adjunct to an Intel decision to build a major multi-billion-dollar state-of-the-art chip plant in Licking County, Ohio. The plant needs the power, Intel specifies it is to be renewable.
Websearch = intel ohio fab --- for further info/coverage.
The linked and quoted report of the hearing's yin and yang continues from the initial paragraphs quoted. Readers might want to read it all.
The quaint fact in this land use dispute - whether solar farm or continued farming land, either way the land is in the "renewables" business. Agriculture being such.
That this major specific instance of land use disagreement is not unique, hat tip to Dan Burns, per his "Rural opposition to renewables projects" post, (which indirectly led to Crabgrass' focus upon the opening cited item in this post).
__________UPDATE_________
A few solar-related links which might interest readers:
dli.mn.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fs_code_solar.pdf
https://mn.gov/commerce/consumers/your-home/energy-info/solar/
https://mn.gov/commerce/industries/energy/solar/
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2016/10/18/minnesotas-largest-solar-farm-about-to-open-heres.html
https://www.wctrib.com/business/company-working-on-leases-for-huge-solar-farms-in-southwest-minnesota
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/49930.pdf
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ferc-might-rewrite-solar-net-metering-heres-what-that-means
https://www.startribune.com/solar-garden-options-rolling-out-for-xcel-energy-customers-in-minnesota/347919831/
https://www.startribune.com/solar-gardens-what-you-need-to-know/347922641/
Not an exhaustive list. A starting point for anybody interested, instead.