AriSEIA Submits Redlines on Yavapai County's 2nd Draft of Solar Ordinance

​Yavapai County Development Services
1120 Commerce Drive
Prescott, AZ 86305
 
RE: August 8th Planning and Zoning Meeting: Solar Facilities Zoning Ordinance Amendment – Sections 501 & 608
 
Supervisors, Commissioners, and Staff,
 
AriSEIA previously submitted a letter and redlines on the first draft of the ordinance on June 10th, we submitted a second letter on July 11th, and this letter includes redlines on the second draft as Attachment A. We only had four business days between receiving the second draft of the ordinance and the deadline for comments on the final draft. We encourage you to take more time with this ordinance and not vote to send it on to the Board on August 8th.
 
Our two largest concerns continue to be the acreage caps and the setback requirements found in Section 608(F). The acreage caps are arbitrary. 3,000 acres per project is too low. We recommend 5,000 acres per project, if you feel you need a cap at all. There should be no cumulative cap on acreage development in the County. The 8,000 acre cap is in conflict with the County’s Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted in 2023. The Energy Element of the Comprehensive Plan “promotes the use of clean energy sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biofuels.”[1] The Plan is intended to “identify policies and practices that increase the use of renewable energy sources.”[2] It goes on to say that “[t]hrough the Energy Element, the County can encourage the efficient use of energy and promote clean, renewable energy production.”[3] Finally, the Plan also says the County will “[a]dvocate for the development of renewable energy sources that are not water intensive.”[4] Solar uses very little water. We have included some data on lifecycle water uses of various electric generating resources in Figures 1 and 2 below.
 
The acreage cap will limit solar development in Yavapai County. Our member companies have confirmed that they will not apply for a waiver in a jurisdiction with a cap, if they do not already own land, because it is simply too risky. This limits the economic development opportunities of the County, as well as the electric reliability of our grid. As the economic impact assessment we provided reflects, even a smaller (200 MW) project would bring more than $200M in economic activity to the County over the life of the project, as well as hundreds of jobs during construction.
 
A cap could also result in a race to build projects and not result in the best projects being built. We encourage you to remove the cap entirely and review these projects qualitatively on a case-by-case basis. If a project is not a good fit for the County you can deny it, regardless of how many acres are or are not being utilized for solar within the County.
 
The setbacks continue to be a concern, as well. They are simply too large. We recommended specific parameters for buffer zones in our July 11th letter and in our redlines in Attachment A. Section 8.5.1 of the Comprehensive Plan recognizes the need to mitigate some of the environmental impacts of large scale energy projects, such as solar. The Plan says that “the County finds it preferable for utility-scale projects to be sited as close as practical to existing transmission lines and power substations.”[5] The numerous restrictions, including onerous setbacks reduce the plausibility of this stated preference.
 
Finally, given the tight turnaround time in between rounds of comments, we were not able to research and answer Commissioners’ questions regarding vehicle to grid storage, off grid systems, or wildfire shutoffs. However, we have included information as to the waste generated by solar panels. I have also included a fact sheet on Solar Panel Recycling and Disposal as Attachment B. Columbia Law School’s Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles, False Claim #3 is also included as Attachment C.[6] While solar produces a small amount of waste, relative to other waste streams (see Figures 3 and 4 below), considerable effort is being spent to reduce its waste. The national Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has a PV recycling program[7] and the Department of Energy (DOE) is also working on innovative ways to reduce waste.[8] AriSEIA has member companies that work on refurbishment and recycling of solar panels, as well as second life utilization of lithium-ion batteries.
 
At the August 8th meeting we encourage you to slow the pace of the ordinance so that the Staff has time to incorporate the feedback received in the next version. We still recommend a joint stakeholder working session to discuss any outstanding redlines. When the ordinance is ready for a vote, we strongly recommend that it not include a countywide acreage cap.
  
Respectfully,
/s/ Autumn T. Johnson
Executive Director
AriSEIA 
(520) 240-4757
[email protected]

[1] Comprehensive Plan Update 2023, Yavapai County Government, Section 8.0, P.101, available here https://www.yavapaiaz.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/development-and-permits/development-services/documents/yavapai_cty_comp_plan.pdf (emphasis added).

[2] Id (emphasis added).

[3] Id (emphasis added).

[4] Id. at 108 (emphasis added).

[5] Id. at 105.

[6] Columbia Law School, Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles, False Claim #3 Solar Panels Generate Too Much Waste and Will Overwhelm Our Landfills, P.4, available here  

[7] SEIA National PV Recycling Program, available here https://www.seia.org/initiatives/seia-national-pv-recycling-program.

[8] DOE, Beyond Recycling: Reducing waste from Solar Modules Before They’re Even Made, March 5, 2024, available here https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/beyond-recycling-reducing-waste-solar-modules-theyre-even-made. 

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