Birch Solar project suspended after group withdraws appeal

SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP — After discussions, debates and deliberations stretching back more than four years, efforts to bring a more than 2,000-acre, 300-megawatt solar farm to Allen and Auglaize Counties came to an end Thursday after Birch Solar 1, LLC filed an application with the Ohio Supreme Court to dismiss its appeal of a ruling by the Ohio Power Siting Board denying approval for the project.

The text of the application put the end of this project in plain terms, with the reason for the filing being that Birch Solar 1 “has elected to suspend further development of the solar facility at issue in the appeal.”

The genesis of this project goes back to October 2020 when LightsourceBP, the company behind the Birch Solar project, announced it was reaching out to stakeholders in Allen and Auglaize County about the project, initially estimated to cost $337 million. However, the project was quickly met with resistance from area residents, with concerns ranging from the impact on property values to infringing on the rights of property owners and the loss of valuable farmland.

“That’s some of our best farm ground in Shawnee Township,” Shawnee Township Trustee Clark Spieles said. “But one of the worst things was [the idea of] telling someone what they can and can’t do with their land.”

That resistance soon made its way to the Power Siting Board, with objections coming from impacted citizens as well as local government representatives, including township trustees and the Boards of Commissioners for both Allen and Auglaize Counties.

In October 2022, the siting board unanimously denied LighthouseBP’s application, citing a lack of “public interest, convenience and necessity as required by Ohio law,” according to previous Lima News coverage.

After Thursday’s filing, Allen County Commissioner Beth Seibert said the position of her board has not changed throughout the process.

“We agree with the original ruling of the Ohio Public Works Commission Power Siting Board,” she said. “Beyond that, we don’t have any comment on the filing for withdrawal.”

An appeal filed with the siting board was denied the following June after LightsourceBP argued that the board was overreliant on public sentiment and did not conduct its own analysis of the project’s potential benefits. The siting board repeated its emphasis on public interest, convenience and necessity as the primary factors in its decision.

With the project now suspended indefinitely, Spieles expressed gratification at the board’s willingness to take public concerns into account in its decisions.

“It played out that the residents got to speak,” he said. “It’s a good thing that everyone was involved.”

A message was left with LightsoureceBP requesting comment, but that message was not returned Friday.