Responses to Common Concerns
Comment/Concern: Topsoil Removal - Topsoil will be removed from site, or stripped from the site to level the ground and piled onsite which will impact of water flow/diversion from topsoil piles, and the land won’t be farmable after the panels are removed
Response: Solar construction operations seek to minimize topsoil disturbance in order preserve the quantity and quality of topsoil to facilitate the establishment of year-round vegetation, both for erosion control and for livestock forage. Crossroads’s permit application to the Ohio Power Siting Board (“OPSB”) will commit to not removing topsoil from the project area. Additionally, permit conditions recently issued by OPSB for other solar projects include several topsoil protection measures including prohibiting topsoil removal, soil testing before and after construction, and site restoration to ensure the project area can be returned to crop farming upon decommissioning of the facility. In fact, on some recently constructed solar projects in Ohio, areas that were used temporarily during construction and where topsoil was stockpiled and reapplied after construction (such as for parking and equipment laydown areas) are already back in crop production.
Comment/Concern: Farmland Loss and Impact to Farmers - Large-scale solar facilities take up so much farmland that it will impact the rural way of life and farmers’ ability to purchase equipment. Once the panels are removed, the land will no longer be farmable.
Response: Crossroads will occupy less than 0.5% of the farmland in Morrow County, which has approximately 133,688 acres of (non-wooded) farmland. In addition to creating hundreds of good construction jobs, Crossroads will create good-paying, long-term jobs to operate and maintain the facility, including vegetation management and lamb production as part of the shepherd’s livestock operation. Existing topsoil will be preserved and the land underneath and between the solar panels will be put into a passive native grassland habitat for decades allowing the soil to rest and reducing the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the area for decades.
Statewide, even if every one of the ~20 GW of solar projects proposed throughout the state were to come online on farmland, solar facilities would occupy only about 1% of the state’s farmland.
Comment/Concern: Farmland vs. Solar Use - Food is more important than electricity and solar takes food out of many mouths. Corn and soy beans are better use of land than solar. Solar should go on buildings and parking lots, not farmland.
Response: While farming food is incredibly important to feed our country, roughly 40% of Ohio’s corn crop currently goes to create ethanol fuel which requires 100 acres to generate the same amount of energy as a single acre in solar panels. Also, around 50% of Ohio’s soy bean harvest is exported to China. Crossroads would use less than 0.5% of the farmland in Morrow County to power Central Ohio homes and businesses with electricity that is less than half the price of solar power from a residential rooftop or parking lot. Find out more about solar vs. ethanol energy efficiency here: https://www.cleanwisconsin.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Corn-Ethanol-Vs.-Solar-Analysis-V3-9-compressed.pdf
The potential to develop utility-scale solar projects in a given area is limited by the electricity transmission infrastructure, which means that the vast majority of farmland in a particular area is not suitable for utility-scale solar. This reality also means that each utility-scale solar project that comes online in the area makes the next utility-scale solar project less likely to secure additional room on the electric grid.
Comment/Concern: Government Subsidies - Solar is dependent on government money, dark money, money from China, and a New World Order (NWO). Solar developers are controlled by the government, and the government is buying project lands.
Response: Open Road’s solar projects are not affiliated with the government; they are owned by private companies and are developed using private capital. The financing of project construction typically includes a one-time 30% federal tax credit. Many industries receive local, state, and federal policy support, including agriculture, manufacturing, automobiles, and all types of power generation (including coal, gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power). In contrast to solar’s one-time federal tax credit, fossil fuels have received trillions of dollars of direct subsidies over many decades, including taxpayer-funded bailouts in Ohio, annual production and exploration subsidies, valuation discounts, and various other tax breaks.
A key benefit of solar power is that the fuel is free. This means that once constructed, there are very few costs required to operate a solar facility for decades, which is not the case for coal, gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power plants. Another key benefit of solar power is that it avoids fossil energy’s huge societal costs, which affect all of our pocketbooks. These range from increased health care costs to environmental damage, and constitute massive indirect subsidies for coal and gas.
According to financial advisory firm Lazard’s “Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis” in 2023, solar power costs have declined more than 80% over the last decade. Solar facilities can now produce power cheaper than coal, nuclear, and gas peaker plants and are competitive with many baseload gas plants, especially when comparing the unsubsidized economics of each of these types generation.
Comment/Concern: Decommissioning - Solar projects will leave mess that the landowners will have to clean up and pay for, and the land will not be farmable at the end of the project life.
Response: Ohio law requires solar projects to post decommissioning bonds in amounts estimated by “professional engineers registered with the state board of registration for professional engineers and surveyors” to “ensure that funds are available for the decommissioning of the facility.” The estimate must cover “the full costs of decommissioning the utility facility,” including the “proper disposal of all facility components” and “restoration of the land on which the facility is located to its pre-construction state.” To keep it current, the bond amount must be recalculated every five years that the facility is in operation. Read the Ohio laws about decommissioning here, Chapter 4906.21-.222: https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/chapter-4906. Learn more about decommissioning here.
Comment/Concern: Heat Island Effect - Solar projects cause extreme heat issues and can raise ground temperatures.
Response: According to a North Carolina State University review of a number of studies on this topic, while the air immediately above a solar panel on a sunny day is warmer than the air next to the solar panel, the increase in temperature is localized to the solar equipment and is not measurable outside of the project fence line. In contrast, the phenomenon known as “corn sweat”, whereby corn and soybean crops cause the regional humidity to spike, is physically observable around corn and soy fields. According to Fox Weather, “...corn sweat can make heat go from uncomfortable to unbearable across the "corn belt" states…”
Comment/Concern: Recycling and Waste - Solar panels can’t be recycled and will create tons of waste.
Response: Solar panels are made mostly of recyclable materials such as aluminum and glass, and even the semi-conducting material in them is recyclable. Additionally, solar panels no longer producing enough energy for optimal commercial power generation can still generate electricity for decades and may be used for years in other locations and applications.
If and when solar panels ultimately become a waste product, it is important to understand the nature of future solar waste in context: Globally, we produce and manage approximately the same mass of coal ash per month as the amount of solar module waste we expect to produce over the next 35 years combined! Transitioning from fossil fuels to solar will enable a substantial reduction in waste mass and toxicity.
Compared another way, globally by 2050 we will generate up to 1,300 times more municipal waste than solar module waste!
Find out more about solar panel recycling from the U.S. EPA here: https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling, and read more about solar panel after-life waste considerations here.
Comment/Concern: Solar Panels are Toxic – Solar projects will leak toxic chemicals into the ground, leach chemicals into the water table, pollute the water, and poison the soil.
Response: Solar panels are made almost entirely of tempered, shatter-resistant glass, metal, plastics, and a semi-conducting material that is thinner than a sheet of paper and fully encapsulated to keep out air and moisture. They do not leach chemicals and contain no liquids that can spill. According to the Ohio Department of Health, there is no public health impact from solar panels used in solar facilities operating under normal conditions: solar panel design "ensures that the cells and solder are completely encapsulated and protected from rain and other elements that might corrode or damage them, and also means that the general public would not come into contact with any potential toxic elements contained in the panel unless...purposefully ground into a fine dust.“ Solar panels are so safe that they are installed nationwide on millions of homes, schools, hospitals, barns, farms, churches, and businesses. There are even floating solar projects that are installed on water supply reservoirs, including on a reservoir owned by the Delco Water Company in neighboring Delaware County!
Crossroads will commit to using solar panels that are, for disposal purposes, classified as non-hazardous waste under applicable U.S. EPA tests (such as TCLP). This commitment means that the solar panels, if not recycled, are safe enough in the eyes of the U.S. EPA to be disposed of in a regular landfill along with household garbage.
Find out more here: https://odh.ohio.gov/know-our-programs/health-assessment-section/media/summary-solarfarms, and here.
Comment/Concern: Environmental & Habitat Impact - Solar will kill animals, destroy wildlife habitat, destroy the planet, disrupt bird and animal migration and feeding patterns, harm livestock, and grow weeds. Planting indigenous pollinators everywhere should be the goal.
Response: Crossroads will be designed to have a positive environmental impact both locally and beyond. The project will have a minimal impact on forested areas and is almost exclusively using active farmland which will be converted from an active row crop use to a passive native grassland use underneath the solar panels for decades. The project’s solar fields are non-contiguous, which will allow large wildlife (like deer) to migrate between the fields, and fencing will allow smaller wildlife to migrate through the fields. The passive grassland use means a large reduction in chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides being applied in the project area compared to the current active agricultural use, a significant local environmental benefit to wildlife and humans alike. Crossroads will plant many acres of new pollinator-friendly habitat around the project perimeter and will use sheep grazing as the primary means of vegetation management below and between the solar panels.
The US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory recently completed a 5-year long study of biodiversity on two solar projects in Minnesota showed a rapid increase in insect and pollinator biodiversity once the previously active farm fields were planted in native grasses under the solar panels. The researchers found a 20-fold increase in native bees and increased pollinator activity on the adjacent farm fields.
Solar projects also reduce reliance on energy sources that are far more harmful to birds, in particular. According to the non-profit National Audubon Society, whose mission is to protect birds, cutting air pollution “is essential to avoid the worst impacts on birds and other wildlife” and “large-scale solar farms can benefit birds overall.”
Comment/Concern: No Need for Solar Power in Ohio - Solar farms are unnecessary for Ohio energy needs.
Response: The State of Ohio is 4th in the nation in electricity consumption but 10th in the nation in electricity production. That means that, as a net electricity importer, Ohio’s homes and businesses send money out of state to pay for their electricity consumption. Currently, Ohio imports over 20% of its power from other states and Canada via the regional grid. Increasing electricity production in-state, especially during peak demand hours, offsets electricity that is being imported from outside of Ohio, boosting our energy independence and helping keep more of Ohio’s dollars in-state. Ohio is one of 14 states in the multi-state PJM transmission grid, and that grid is forecasted to be short on new generation through at least 2030. Only 2.3% of the projects proposed in PJM that are able to come online through the end of this decade are new natural gas facilities, and 0% are coal plants, meaning that without new solar projects like Crossroads providing new peak power, Ohio will face substantial challenges in cost-effectively meeting the state’s growing demand for power. Find out more here: https://insidelines.pjm.com/new-interconnection-process-reaches-next-milestone/
Comment/Concern: Solar Projects Are Inefficient - Solar is inefficient vs. coal/gas and efficiency decreases over time.
Response: Commercial solar panels range between 18% and 23% efficiency, which is a measure of the amount of sunlight that hits a solar panel that is converted to electricity. The more efficient the solar panel, the less space required to produce power. The net capacity factor (NCF) refers to the percentage of a generator’s rated capacity that actually produces power over a year. Each generation type serves a different purpose that is not fully captured by comparing their NCF or efficiency. For example, solar farms in Ohio have an NCF of about 23%, but they produce power during some of the most important parts of the day/year when demand is the highest. Similarly, natural gas peaker plants generate power during peak hours when it's most needed, but they typically have NCFs of 10-15% or less. Gas baseload plants (steady flow of power throughout the day/night) can go as high as 60% NCF, but are slower to ramp up during peak hours and thus often cannot meet peak demand. Nuclear plants can have very high NCFs >90%, but they can only provide baseload power. The power price achieved by an Ohio solar facility compares favorably to coal and peak natural gas and already takes into account solar panel efficiency and degradation rates.
When it comes to an efficient use of land, solar projects in Ohio use between 5 and 7 acres per MW of capacity, which can produce enough electricity to power about 120 Ohio homes. Each 1 acre of land in solar produces approximately the same amount of energy as 100 acres of land used to grow corn for ethanol. Find out more here.
Comment/Concern: Solar Power Variability - Solar is unreliable. Texas had power outages in the summer and people died because of solar.
Response: Renewable energy is often criticized as “variable,” but its variability is highly predictable. Fossil fuel resources, in contrast, often have unexpected production outages, which pose a greater risk to the grid. Grid operators know when the sun will set—but they do not know when a critical component might break at a gas or coal power plant, or when severe weather or a global crisis will suddenly reduce fossil fuel supplies. For example, according to the Texas grid operator (ERCOT), the biggest contributor to Texas’s blackouts in 2021 was the combination of natural gas power plant failures and frozen natural gas fuel supply systems (at the gas wells and pipelines). Find out more here.
Comment/Concern: Solar Doesn’t Work In Ohio - There is not enough sunlight, they don’t work on cloudy days, and hail storms will take them out.
Response: Because the cost of solar continues to steeply decline over time, sunshine is free, and operating and maintenance costs are relatively low, there is definitely enough sunlight to make solar power economically feasible in Ohio. Sunlight, or “solar resource” in Ohio averages 4.65 kWh/m2 per day. In comparison, Germany, which gets over 12% of its power from solar, has an average solar resource that is not as strong as Ohio (less than 4 kWh/m2per day.) Solar panels use tempered glass that is rated for large hail and does not shatter even when broken, and any damaged panels are promptly removed.
Comment/Concern: Solar is Expensive - Solar projects are too costly to build and maintain.
Response: According to financial advisory firm Lazard’s “Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis” published in 2023, solar power costs have declined more than 80% over the last decade, and solar facilities can now produce power cheaper than coal, nuclear, and gas peaker plants and are competitive with many baseload natural gas plants.
Every day, Ohio’s grid operator forecasts power demand for the next day and schedules generators to meet that demand. Certain power generators (such as fast-starting gas, oil-fired generators, and hydroelectric plants) that meet electricity demand at peak usage times of the day tend to provide the most expensive power. The grid operator accepts offers from the lowest- to the highest-priced generator until the forecasted electricity demand for each hour of every day is met. As more solar power is added to the grid, its $0 fuel cost means that it can submit competitive offers, and therefore is almost always scheduled for the daylight hours. Solar produces power during some of the most expensive hours of the year (for example, a hot July afternoon), which means that the grid operator can avoid scheduling expensive gas or oil power during those hours and save consumers money. This is why, for example, renewable energy saved Texas consumers nearly $1 billion per month in 2022 and a total of $28 billion over the last 12 years! Find out more about how solar costs compare to other power sources here.
Comment/Concern: Viewshed Impacts - Solar is ugly and creates glare into people’s homes and cars with lots of mirrors, access roads, and concrete.
Response: The Crossroads project will not use any mirrors. Solar projects consist of rows of solar panels that are low in profile and uniform in height, making them easy to screen from sight. They are designed to absorb light; roughly 98% of the light that hits a solar panel is absorbed. A well-designed solar project, with appropriate buffer landscaping and equipment setbacks, has a small viewshed impact on neighboring properties, especially once the planted buffer has reached maturity. Project access roads are not paved and construction involves very little concrete and only in a few locations.
Comment/Concern: Solar Manufacturing Issues - Solar panels come from China.
Response: Although a majority of solar panels used in the U.S. today are imported, the vast majority of those panels do not come from China. Many solar panels installed in Ohio are manufactured by the U.S. company First Solar, which has a large manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, Ohio (https://www.firstsolar.com/). Like everything from tractors and trucks to cell phones and TVs, solar panels are made in highly competitive, global markets.
Comment/Concern: Liens - Contractors can put a lien on your property if a solar project doesn’t pay its bills.
Response: Crossroads’s leases do not allow anyone to put a lien on a landowner’s underlying property. Under Ohio law, liens may be placed on solar equipment as part of project financing and construction agreements, but liens would not be placed on the underlying land.
Comment/Concern: Property Value Impacts - Solar projects reduce people’s property values.
Response: Some developments, like landfills that bring truck traffic and litter or large poultry or industrial operations with odors, may affect property values. Solar facilities do not reduce neighboring property values because they generate no odor, air pollution, or water pollution, and virtually no waste, noise, light, or dust. Many studies using different methodologies have concluded that neighboring property values near solar facilities are not affected, particularly at solar facilities that are designed with robust equipment setbacks and perimeter landscaping. Find out more here.
Comment/Concern: Solar Fire Risk - Solar panels can catch on fire.
Response: Solar fire risk is minimal and does not threaten neighbors. Solar panels are made mostly of glass and aluminum and are not flammable. According to North Carolina State University, “[c]oncern over solar fire hazards should be limited because only a small portion of materials in the panels are flammable, and those components cannot self-support a significant fire.” Most of the news items referenced online related to fire and solar are either from rooftop solar fires, where roofs or other building material can support a fire near or under a solar panel, or battery-related fires, which have their own fire-risk profile unrelated to any adjacent solar equipment. For example, an often-referenced 2023 fire at a solar facility in Jefferson County, New York was actually a battery fire, a nuance that was missing in a number of media headlines about the event.
Comment/Concern: Power Price - Solar will increase the cost of electricity for consumers.
Response: Utility-scale solar projects produce power for the wholesale market and have no direct impact on local residents’ utility bills. However, because solar is the cheapest source of new electricity generation (see Lazard’s “Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis” in 2023), more solar projects on the grid puts downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices that utilities pay, which can ultimately help keep rates lower for consumers. Also, solar produces power at peak demand hours, which means that the grid can avoid the need to use much more expensive peaking resources during those hours, which saves utilities (and consumers) a lot of money. For instance, estimates in Texas show that solar and wind saved Texas consumers ~$1 billion per month in 2022! Find out more here.
Other Comments/Concerns:
Comment/Concern: Solar projects cause flooding –
Some early solar facilities in Ohio on particularly wet sites have experienced construction-related stormwater issues. However, this has been the exception, not the rule, and industry best practices on new projects have incorporated lessons learned from those rare instances. It has also become common practice for solar project opponents to blame any flooding event on an adjacent solar project, even if installation of the solar project has improved local drainage patterns.
Stormwater at solar facilities like Crossroads is regulated by Ohio EPA (OEPA). Prior to construction, Crossroads will be required to prepare and submit a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWP3) that complies with a comprehensive OEPA permit. The permit requires Crossroads to implement a host of best management practices (BMPs) to manage erosion and control sedimentation during construction of the project. Those practices include installation of both temporary (during construction) and permanent (during operations) year-round vegetative cover. As part of its OPSB permit application, Crossroads will prepare a stormwater assessment that includes an analysis of stormwater runoff before and after the project is constructed. Due to the change in land use— from the annual planting and harvesting of row crops to native vegetation for pasture throughout the project area— such analyses typically indicate that runoff is expected to decrease once the facility is built and the permanent vegetation is established (because year-round grass cover absorbs more water than cyclical rotations of crops and bare ground with crop stubble).
In the long run, solar projects offer substantial improvements to local water quality vs. active row crops. By planting and maintaining deep-rooted, native vegetation that remains in place for decades, solar farms allow the underlying soil to rest and rejuvenate, boosting the biodiversity of beneficial insects while reducing the use of tons of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, which means less erosion and water pollution than active row crops for decades.
Comment/Concern: Solar construction will damage roads –
Construction of a 100 MW solar facility typically takes approximately 12 months to complete and involves truck and some heavy equipment traffic on local roadways, which may cause wear-and-tear on local roads. In order to ensure that any damage to area roads is repaired and that the roads are returned to their pre-construction conditions, Crossroads plans to enter into a Road Use and Maintenance Agreement (RUMA) with Morrow County officials that includes a bonded obligation to repair any damage to roadways as a result of project construction. Operation of the project over several decades will not involve substantial traffic or heavy equipment.
Comment/Concern: Solar construction creates dust pollution –
Crossroads will implement dust control measures to minimize dust generated along public roads during construction.
Comment/Concern: Solar projects increase local crime rates –
There is no evidence that solar project construction or operation results in increases in local crime rates. Once operational, solar equipment will be fully fenced and both continuously monitored and regularly visited by solar personnel, as well as regularly attended to by sheep farmers.
Comment/Concern: Compliance with contracts, permit conditions, and state law –
All of the legal obligations undertaken by Crossroads – whether in land rights agreements with local land owners, annual revenue payment obligations to county taxing entities, or a Certificate issued by the OPSB – will carry forward and be binding on all parties involved in the construction, operation and decommissioning of the facility, regardless of who owns the facility.
Comment/Concern: Installing utility scale solar facilities on agricultural land should require rezoning –
In Ohio and most states, development of large-scale infrastructure that has a regional or statewide public benefit, such as power plants, pipelines, transmission lines, and roadways, has typically been exempt from local regulation. In Ohio, this regulatory construct is established in Sec. 4906.13 of the Ohio Revised Code. Instead, local considerations are balanced with regional and statewide public needs and benefits. Solar projects under 50 MW in size are subject to local zoning regulations. If large-scale power generation facilities were subject to local zoning, Ohio would not be able to produce the power needed to meet the needs of its growing population and economy. Nonetheless, new solar projects – those that had not already been under development for some time and thus are not grandfathered under Senate Bill 52 – are subject to county approval.
Comment/Concern: Negative impact on tourism –
There is no evidence that well-designed solar projects, properly set back from roads and neighbors and screened from sight, negatively impact tourism. In fact, the infusion of substantial, long-term tax revenue into a local economy can be used to provide infrastructure and resources that can increase tourism if desired by local communities.
Comment/Concern: Solar should be on rooftops v farmland –
As discussed above, Crossroads would use less than 0.5% of the farmland in Morrow County to power Central Ohio homes and businesses with electricity that is less than half the price of solar power from a residential rooftop or parking lot. Although growing food is vital to feed the country, about 40% of Ohio’s corn crop is now used to make ethanol fuel; it requires 100 acres to generate the same amount of energy from ethanol as a single acre in solar panels.
Comment/Concern: Adverse impact to sites of historical/archeological importance, including Native American burial grounds –
OPSB requires solar permit applicants to retain professional historians and archeologists to conduct surveys of proposed project areas to ensure projects do not result in adverse impacts to historical and archeological resources in local communities. The methodology and results are reviewed and approved by the State Historical Preservation Office (SHPO).
Comment/Concern: Solar facilities cause unwanted glare problems for residents living near the project -
In order to maximize production efficiency, solar panels are designed to maximize absorption of sunlight, which inherently minimizes the amount of sunlight reflected off the panels in the form of glare. Research indicates that panels typically absorb about 98% of the incoming sunlight. Additionally, Crossroads will conduct a glare study to assess the potential for glare that may be experienced at residences and public roads near the project.