Utah Leaders Hinder Solar Efforts Despite Need for More Energy — ProPublica

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox believes his state wants extra energy — much more. By some estimates, Utah would require as a lot electrical energy within the subsequent 5 years because it generated all final century, to fulfill the calls for of a rising inhabitants in addition to chase knowledge facilities and AI builders to gasoline its economic system.

To that finish, Cox introduced Operation Gigawatt final yr, declaring the state would double vitality manufacturing within the subsequent decade. Though the announcement was quick on particulars, Cox, a Republican, promised his administration would take an “any of the above” strategy, which goals to develop all sources of vitality manufacturing.

Regardless of that objective, the Utah Legislature’s Republican supermajority, with Cox’s acquiescence, has taken a tough flip towards solar energy — which has been coming on-line quicker than another supply in Utah and accounts for two-thirds of the brand new initiatives ready to connect with the state’s energy grid.

Cox signed a pair of payments handed this yr that can make it harder and costly to develop and produce photo voltaic vitality in Utah by ending photo voltaic growth tax credit and imposing a hefty new tax on photo voltaic era. A 3rd invoice geared toward limiting photo voltaic growth on farmland narrowly missed the deadline for passage however is anticipated to return subsequent yr.

Whereas Operation Gigawatt emphasizes nuclear and geothermal as Cox’s most well-liked sources, the legislative broadside, and Cox’s willingness to associate with it, caught many within the photo voltaic business off guard. The three payments, of their unique kind, may have introduced photo voltaic growth to a halt if not for photo voltaic business lobbyists negotiating a decrease tax charge and defending current initiatives in addition to these underneath development from the brunt of the impression.

“It took each greenback of political capital from all the key photo voltaic builders simply to get to one thing tolerable, in order that something they’ve underneath growth will get constructed they usually can transfer on to greener pastures,” stated one business insider, indicating that photo voltaic builders will doubtless pursue initiatives in additional politically pleasant states. ProPublica spoke with three business insiders — vitality builders and lobbyists — all of whom requested to stay nameless for concern of antagonizing lawmakers who, subsequent month, will once more think about laws affecting the business.

The Utah Legislature’s pivot away from photo voltaic mirrors President Donald Trump taking a extra hostile strategy to the business than his predecessor. Trump has ordered the phaseout of lucrative federal tax incentives for photo voltaic and different renewable vitality, which expanded underneath the Biden administration. The lack of federal incentives is a much bigger hit to photo voltaic firms than the reductions to Utah’s tax incentives, business insiders acknowledged. The administration has additionally canceled massive wind and photo voltaic initiatives, which Trump has lamented as “the rip-off of the century.” He described photo voltaic as “farmer killing.” 

But Cox criticized the Trump administration’s choice to kill a large photo voltaic mission in neighboring Nevada. Referred to as a governor who advocates for a return to extra civil political discourse, Cox doesn’t usually choose fights. However he didn’t pull punches with the decision to halt the Esmeralda 7 project deliberate on 62,300 acres of federal land. The central Nevada mission was anticipated to provide 6.2 gigawatts of energy — sufficient to produce practically eight occasions the variety of households in Las Vegas. (Though the Trump administration canceled the environmental overview of the joint mission proposed by a number of builders, it has the potential to maneuver ahead as particular person initiatives.)

“That is how we lose the AI/vitality arms race with China,” Cox wrote on X when information surfaced of the mission’s cancellation. “Our nation wants an all-of-the-above strategy to vitality (like Utah).”

However he didn’t tackle his personal Legislature, at the very least publicly.

Lots of Utah’s Republican legislators have been skeptical of photo voltaic for years, criticizing its footprint on the panorama and viewing it as an unreliable vitality supply, whereas lamenting the retirement of coal-generated energy crops. The economies of a number of rural counties depend on mining coal. However lawmakers’ skepticism hadn’t coalesced into profitable anti-solar laws — till this yr. When Utah lawmakers convened at the beginning of 2025, they took benefit of the political second to go after photo voltaic.

“This can be a sentiment sweeping by way of pink states, and it’s very disconcerting and really disturbing,” stated Steve Helpful, Utah director of The Western Manner, which describes itself as a conservative group advocating for an all-of-the-above strategy to vitality growth.

The shift in sentiment towards photo voltaic vitality has created a tough local weather for an all-of-the-above strategy. Photo voltaic initiatives could be constructed shortly on Utah’s huge, sun-drenched land, whereas nuclear is an extended recreation with initiatives anticipated to take a decade or extra to come back on-line underneath optimistic eventualities. 

Cox usually helps photo voltaic, “in the best locations,” particularly when the captured vitality could be saved in massive batteries for distribution on cloudy days and after the solar goes down.

Cox stated that as an alternative of vetoing the anti-solar payments, he spent his political capital to average the laws’s impression. “I feel you’ll see the place our fingerprints had been,” he instructed ProPublica. He didn’t element particular adjustments for which he advocated however stated the payments’ earlier iterations would have “been rather a lot worse.”

“We are going to proceed to see photo voltaic in Utah.”

Cox’s any-of-the-above strategy to vitality era attracts from a decades-old Republican push equally titled “the entire above.” The GOP coverage’s goal was as a lot about preserving and increasing reliance on fossil fuels (certainly, the phrase may have been coined by petroleum lobbyists) because it was turning to cleaner vitality sources comparable to photo voltaic, wind and geothermal.

As governor of a coal-producing state, Cox hasn’t proven curiosity in decreasing reliance on such legacy fuels. However as he slowly rolls out Operation Gigawatt, his focus has been on geothermal and nuclear energy. Final month, he introduced plans for a producing hub for small modular reactors within the northern Utah group of Brigham Metropolis, which he hopes will grow to be a nuclear supply chain for Utah and past. And on a current commerce mission to New Zealand, he signed an settlement to collaborate with the nation on geothermal energy development.

In the meantime, the payments Cox signed into legislation already look like slowing photo voltaic growth in Utah. Since Could, when the legal guidelines took impact, 51 deliberate photo voltaic initiatives withdrew their functions to connect with the state’s grid — representing greater than 1 / 4 of all initiatives in Utah’s transmission connection queue. Though initiatives drop out for a lot of causes, some business insiders theorize the anti-solar laws might be at play.

Caught within the political squeeze over energy are Utah prospects, who’re footing greater electrical energy payments. Earlier this yr, the state’s utility, Rocky Mountain Energy, requested regulators to approve a 30% hike to fund elevated gasoline and wholesale vitality prices, in addition to upgrades to the grid. In response to outrage from lawmakers, the utility knocked the request right down to 18%. Regulators ultimately awarded the utility a 4.7% improve — a call the utility promptly appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Juliet Carlisle, a College of Utah political science professor specializing in environmental coverage, stated the brand new photo voltaic tax may sign to massive photo voltaic builders that Utah vitality coverage is “turning into extra unpredictable,” prompting them to construct elsewhere. This, in flip, may undermine Cox’s efforts to shortly double Utah’s electrical energy provide. 

Operation Gigwatt “depends on fast deployment throughout a number of vitality sources, together with renewables,” she stated. “If renewable development slows — particularly utility-scale photo voltaic, which is at present the fastest-deploying useful resource — the state might face challenges assembly demand development timelines.”

Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, had sponsored laws to finish the photo voltaic business’s state tax credit for a number of legislative periods, however this was the primary time the proposal succeeded.

Christofferson agrees Utah is dealing with unprecedented demand for energy, and he helps Cox’s any-of-the-above strategy. However he doesn’t assume photo voltaic deserves some great benefits of tax credit. Regardless of enhancing battery expertise, he nonetheless considers it an intermittent supply and thinks overreliance on it might work towards Utah’s vitality objectives.

In testimony on his invoice, Christofferson stated he believed the tax incentives had served their function of getting a brand new business off the bottom — 16% of Utah’s power era now comes from photo voltaic, rating it sixteenth within the nation for photo voltaic capability. 

Christofferson’s invoice was the least regarding to the business, largely as a result of it negotiated a prolonged wind-down of the subsidies. Initially it might have ended the tax credit score after Jan. 1, 2032. However after negotiations with the photo voltaic business, he prolonged the deadline to 2035.

The invoice handed the Home, however when it reached the Senate flooring, Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Nice Grove, moved the tip of the incentives to 2028. He instructed ProPublica he believes photo voltaic is already established and now not wants the subsidy. Christofferson tried to defend his compromise however in the end voted with the legislative majority.

Not like Christofferson’s invoice, which wasn’t born of an antipathy for renewable vitality, Rep. Casey Snider, R-Paradise, made it clear in public statements and behind closed doorways to business lobbyists that the objective of his invoice was to make photo voltaic pay.

The invoice imposes a tax on all photo voltaic manufacturing. The proceeds will considerably improve the state’s endangered species fund, which Utah paradoxically makes use of to battle federal efforts to record threatened animals for cover. Snider solid his invoice as pro-environment, arguing the cash may additionally go to habitat safety.

As initially written, the invoice would have taxed not solely future initiatives, but in addition these already producing energy and, extra worrisome for the business, initiatives underneath development or in growth with financing in place. The margins on such initiatives are skinny, and the unanticipated tax may kill initiatives already within the works, one photo voltaic business government testified.

“Corporations like ours are being successfully punished for investing within the state,” testified one other.

The pushback drew assaults from Snider, who accused photo voltaic firms of hypocrisy on the atmosphere.

Trade lobbyists who spoke to ProPublica stated Snider wasn’t as keen to barter as Christofferson. Nonetheless, they succeeded in decreasing the tax charge on future developments and negotiated a smaller, flat payment for current initiatives.

“Everybody form of determined collectively to save lots of the prevailing initiatives and let it go for future initiatives,” stated one lobbyist.

Snider instructed ProPublica, “My objective was by no means to run anyone out of enterprise. If we needed to make it extra heavy-handed, we may have. Utah is a conservative state, and I’d have had all of the assist.”

Snider stated, just like the governor, he favors an any-of-the-above strategy to vitality era and doesn’t “wish to take down any specific business or supply.” However he believes utility-scale photo voltaic farms have to pay to mitigate their impression on the atmosphere. He likened his invoice to federal legislation that requires royalties from oil and fuel firms for use for conservation. He hopes federal lawmakers will use his invoice as a mannequin for federal laws that may apply to photo voltaic initiatives nationwide.

“This business wants to present again to the atmosphere that they declare very closely they will shield,” he stated. “I do consider there’s a tinge of hypocrisy to this entire motion. You’ll be able to’t say you’re good for the atmosphere and never offset your impacts.”

One of many extra emotional debates over photo voltaic is ready to return subsequent yr, after a invoice that may finish tax incentives for photo voltaic growth on agricultural land did not get a vote within the remaining minutes of this yr’s session. Sponsored by Rep. Colin Jack, R-St. George, the invoice has been fast-tracked within the subsequent session, which begins in January.

Jack stated he was pushed to behave by ranchers who had been involved that photo voltaic firms had been outbidding them for land they’d been leasing to graze cows. Photo voltaic firms pay considerably greater charges than ranchers can. His invoice initially had a slew of land use restrictions — comparable to mandating the gap between initiatives and residential property and creeks, minimal lot sizes and 4-mile “inexperienced zones” between initiatives — that photo voltaic lobbyists stated would have strangled their business. After negotiating with photo voltaic builders, Jack eradicated the land use restrictions whereas preserving provisions to ban tax incentives for photo voltaic farms on personal agricultural land and to create requirements for decommissioning initiatives.

Many in rural Utah recoil at rows of black panels disrupting the panorama and concern photo voltaic farms will displace the ranching and farming lifestyle. Certainly, some puzzled whether or not Cox, who grew up on a farm in central Utah, would have been as important of Trump scuttling a 62,300-acre photo voltaic farm in his personal state as he was of the Nevada mission’s cancellation.

Peter Greathouse, a rancher in western Utah’s Millard County, stated he’s nervous about photo voltaic farms taking over grazing land in his county. “Twelve and a half p.c is privately owned, and a whole lot of that’s not farmable. So should you usher in these photo voltaic locations that begin to eat up the farmland, it could’t get replaced,” he stated.

Utah is shedding about 500,000 acres of agricultural land each 10 years, most of it to housing. A report by The Western Manner estimated photo voltaic farms use 0.1% of america’ whole land mass. That quantity is anticipated to develop to 0.46% by 2050 — a tiny fraction of what’s utilized by agriculture. Of the land managed by the Utah Belief Lands Administration, lower than 3,000 of the two.9 million acres dedicated to grazing have been transformed to photo voltaic farms.

Different ranchers instructed ProPublica they’ve been in a position to keep on their land and protect their lifestyle by leasing to photo voltaic. Landon Kesler’s household, which raises cattle for group roping competitions, has leased land to photo voltaic for greater than a decade. The income has allowed the household to nearly double its land holdings, offering extra room to ranch, Kesler stated.

“I’m going to be fairly sincere, it’s absurd,” Kesler stated of efforts to restrict photo voltaic on agricultural land. “Photo voltaic very straight helped us tie up different property for use for cattle and ranching. It didn’t run us out; it truly helped our agricultural enterprise thrive.”

Photo voltaic lobbyists and executives have been working to bolster the business’s picture with lawmakers forward of the subsequent legislative session. They’re arguing photo voltaic is an efficient neighbor.

“We don’t use water, we don’t want sidewalks, we don’t create noise and we don’t create gentle,” stated Amanda Smith, vice chairman of exterior affairs for AES, which has one photo voltaic mission working in Utah and a second in growth. “So we simply form of sit on the market and produce vitality.” 

Photo voltaic pays personal landowners in Utah $17 million a yr to lease their land. And, extra vital, photo voltaic builders argue, it’s important to powering knowledge facilities the state is working to draw.

“We’re desperate to be a part of a diversified electrical energy portfolio, and we predict we convey a whole lot of values that can profit communities, maintain charges low and secure, and assist maintain the lights on,” Rikki Seguin, government director of Interwest Vitality Alliance, a western commerce group that advocates for utility-scale renewable vitality initiatives, instructed an interim committee of lawmakers this summer time. 

The message didn’t get a optimistic reception from some lawmakers on the committee. Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield, who represents three rural Utah counties and was amongst photo voltaic’s critics final session, stated the largest criticism he hears from constituents is about “that ugly photo voltaic facility” in his district.

“Why, Rep. Albrecht, did you permit that photo voltaic area to be constructed? It’s black. It appears to be like just like the Useless Sea while you drive by it,” Albrecht stated.