The United States’ shift to renewable solar energy is happening whether or not locally elected officials allow Iowa landowners to participate. Land owners – not the legislature, county board or Farm Bureau – should decide what energy sources should come from farm land.
A trio of alternative energy lobbyists pitched that message Oct. 4 to three Muscatine supervisors and seven others at the West Liberty Community Center.
The Clean Grid Alliance hosted the meeting and brought this message: Utility-scale solar lease payments can exceed rental income on farmland. Congress has established “trillions,” in renewable energy incentives in the coming decades, so thousands of American landowners will be making the change. Why not Iowans?
“The legislature has kind of struggled with this issue. There’s no way to centrally plan without ruling out certain areas,” said Jeff Danielson, vice president of advocacy for Clean Grid Alliance. He said county boards have been inundated with “inaccurate information,” about the impact of solar panels on agriculture. Concerns like glare, hum and environmental harm are smoke screens, he said.
“If every new megawatt was built in prime farmland, it would be one-tenth of one percent of Iowa’s best land. It’s easy to get overblown, but it is 0.11 percent of prime,” said Danielson.
Danielson, a former state senator from Waterloo, joined Iowa Conservative Energy Forum executive director Nick Boeyink, and Land and Liberty Coalition field representative Thomas Bean. Boeyink is a former field representative for Kim Reynolds governor campaign. The Land and Liberty Coalition is an advocacy arm of the Conservative Energy Network.
The trio warned against county zoning changes that could leave Iowa landowners out of the shift to renewables.
“We are not here to lease land or encourage you to lease land, Bean said. “We’re here to educate and encourage county governments to give you the opportunity to consider it.”
Muscatine County supervisors Kurt Kirchner, Danny Chick Jr., and Jeff Sorensen listened attentively, and stayed another 15 minutes asking questions.
Muscatine’s 2021 solar ordinance establishes setbacks and other regulations for utility-scale solar operations.
Scott County supervisors in 2022 added land productivity rules, outlawing solar on all but the worst crop land. Danielson called those provisions, “poison pills,” that effectively kill utility-scale solar options for thousands of Iowa landowners.
Danielson said he saw no “poison pills” in Muscatine’s ordinance.
Scott County’s zoning rules ban solar on land with a corn suitability rating higher than 60. Danielson said Iowa legislators discussed but never acted on a 65 CSR2 rating as a threshold.
Statewide, the mean is 68.4, with every county north of I-80 averaging well into the 70s.
“It immediately takes away half of the state’s ability to participate,” Boeyink said.
“We don’t believe government and neighbors should dictate the choice of uses for your land,” Bean said.
Danielson said no other land-use choices are restricted by ag productivity ratings.
“There are no CSR standards on Amazon. And they’ll never get that land back to agriculture,” he said.
Decommissioning
Muscatine supervisor Danny Chick Jr. asked about decommissioning, particularly landfilling of heavy metals used in the panels.
Danielson said the industry is too new to evaluate panel farm shutdowns. But the footings and pillars can be removed more easily than wind towers, or buildings with foundations, he said.
Danielsen said most of the metals are extracted and reused, not landfilled. He also said that over the life of the project, solar panel waste is negligible compared to the waste generated by other industrial and agricultural uses.
Most Iowa corn growers already are in the ethanol energy business that generates a lot of waste. Iowa’s ethanol makers are promoting waste pipelines across the state to ship millions of gallons of hazardous liquid carbon through Iowa for underground storage out of state.
Iowa and renewable energy
“So far, clean energy, on balance, has been a benefit to Iowa,” Danielson said.
Danielson recalled how Sen. Chuck Grassley, “is known as the grandfather of wind energy tax credit,” which brought turbines to western Iowa.
“There’s a long history of clean energy having a role in Iowa,” Danielson said. Solar needs to be another part of it.
Solar development is a cornerstone of MidAmerican and Alliant Energy plans, and includes the 1,500-acre panel farms that Clinton County supervisors approved in August near Grand Mound, just across the Scott County border.
Danielson said solar development will include transmission lines, and storage stations.
“Next you’ll see development of battery storage,” possibly alongside new panel farms.
Danielson noted that annual solar lease payments of $600 or more per acre, exceed farm rental income rates. “The leases tend to be above market for other uses, row crops, etc. In 2022, it was $600-$715 per acre,” for solar Danielson said.
He said solar lease payments statewide total about $850,000; wind tower leases total $60 million.
Solar panels do not preclude other agricultural uses, Danielson said. Options include cover crops, and livestock grazing beneath the panels. some panel farms graze sheep, and others tried goats.
“Goats have gotten on top of the panels, and it doesn’t seem to bother them,” Danielson said, about the panels and the goats.
“Maybe we’ll become the mutton capital,” Muscatine supervisor Jeff Sorenson joked.
Iowa State University is spending a $1.8 million Department of Energy grant studying agrivoltaics, the practice of agriculture beneath solar panels.
“Construction began this summer on the 1.35-megawatt solar farm, which will include more than 3,300 solar panels and 16 inverters, but also offer trial plots for the ISU horticulture team to plant, grow and study crop production and pollinator habitat,” according to a July article published by the Iowa Farm Bureau.
With that level of ISU investment and interest, Danielson and Boeyink believe the Farm Bureau should step aside and let Iowa landowners pursue solar without state or local zoning getting in the way.
“They’re friends of ours,” Boeyink said of the Farm Bureau. “They lead with the property owner’s rights. Second is preserving farmland. I wonder which they’re doing first and second now. I’m often seeing Farm Bureau members seeking solar, but it seems solar more than wind has been a concern for the Farm Bureau.
Danielson called solar, “a leadership challenge among local leaders,” in the Farm Bureau. “And there is no consensus about what to do at the state level.”
Moscow area farmer Barb Smith is a Farm Bureau member who attended. She said she’s eager to consider solar on her farmland. “As a commodity, it’s perfect for me,” she said.
Smith has been pitched on a solar proposal from a firm that said it would maintain the land, and even cover any property tax changes due to the solar development.
“I learned a lot,” she said after the meeting. “I found it incredibly informative. It’s nice to hear from a group that isn’t actively looking to lease your ground. The more you learn, the better decision making.”
“I haven’t seen a lot on it from the Farm Bureau. I’m surprised and not surprised. In our community, there’s been a mixed reaction also. But there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”
Muscatine supervisor Danny Chick said solar is a challenge for his county’s land-use plan.
“In our comp plan, the No. 1 thing is to preserve farm ground. Our county has no CSR restrictions, but we do have restrictions on building homes,” on agriculturally zoned land. “So there’s some unevenness for property owners,” Chick said.
That “unevenness” is endemic across Iowa, where county boards and planning commissions are grappling with a subject not addressed by the legislature.
“I think we ask too much of our local zoning boards. We’ve almost left them on their own. The question on the table is should it be made illegal? That’s just like they used zoning for racial discrimination in the past. Zoning is not the proper tool for this,” Danielson said.
He said it reminds him of ethanol debates when he was in the Iowa legislature. “The farmer at his core is a businessman. But he is a community member, too, who cares about what happens to his neighbor. What we’re looking at is zoning that makes it illegal. We don’t think zoning should be used that way.”
After the meeting, Muscatine County planning director Eric Furnas said he expected supervisors would review the county regulations. “We have made no changes to those ordinances since their adoption, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we take a look at them this year as we work through our Comprehensive land Use Plan update,” Furnas said.