Local governments across the United States are using zoning rules and setback ordinances that can block or delay wind and solar projects, creating a significant but often overlooked barrier to clean energy expansion. A peer-reviewed study published in Nature Energy found that extrapolated setback requirements can reduce technically available land for wind projects by up to 87% and for solar by up to 38%, depending on the size of the mandated buffer zones. With local-level restrictions documented in at least 16 states, according to a Columbia Law School climate law analysis, the fight over where turbines and panels can be built has become a consequential bottleneck for the energy transition.
Setback Rules Shrink the Map for Renewables
The most common tool local governments use is the setback ordinance, which requires wind turbines or solar arrays to sit a minimum distance from property lines, roads, or homes. On their face, these rules look like standard land-use regulation. But when setback distances grow large enough, they can effectively eliminate most buildable land in a jurisdiction. Research published in Nature Energy modeled the nationwide effect of these rules and found that extrapolated setbacks can reduce technically available land for wind development by up to 87%. For solar, the reduction reaches up to 38%, depending on the setback size imposed. Those are not marginal losses. They represent the difference between a region that can host utility-scale generation and one that cannot.
The study’s findings matter because they quantify a problem that often hides behind procedural language. A county board does not need to pass an outright ban on wind farms. It can simply adopt a setback rule requiring turbines to sit 2,000 or 3,000 feet from any occupied structure, and the practical result is the same: no viable project sites remain. In practice, this can block development without an outright ban, which is one reason these rules can be difficult to counter at scale. The paper’s modeling relies on detailed, location-specific analysis rather than abstract assumptions about land use.
Michigan Creates a State-Level Override
Michigan became one of the first states to build a formal mechanism for breaking through local obstruction. Public Act 233 of 2023 established a statewide siting process for utility-scale wind, solar, and battery storage facilities, including statewide renewable siting standards that spell out minimum setback requirements by technology. The law does not strip local governments of their role entirely, but it sets a floor. If a local ordinance imposes restrictions more aggressive than the state minimums, developers gain the right to escalate the project to state-level review. In effect, the statute draws a bright line between reasonable local conditions and rules that would make projects impossible.
On October 10, 2024, the Michigan Public Service Commission approved the formal application process for PA 233, defining what qualifies as a compatible local ordinance, often referred to as a Compatible Renewable Energy Ordinance, or CREO. The triggers for bypassing local processes are specific: a developer can move to state review after an outright denial, after 120 days of local inaction, or when a locality adds restrictions beyond what the state allows. This structure puts local governments on a clock. They can still approve or shape projects, but they can no longer stall indefinitely or impose de facto bans through excessive setbacks without losing jurisdiction over the decision. The result is a clearer, more predictable pathway for projects that meet statewide criteria while still leaving room for local conditions that do not amount to a veto.
Oregon’s Nolin Hills Shows the State Siting Path
Oregon offers a different version of the same principle. The Nolin Hills project, which includes wind, solar, and battery energy storage components, went through the state’s Energy Facility Siting Council rather than relying solely on county-level approval. The Oregon Department of Energy’s project page documents the full timeline, from application exhibits through the Final Order on the Application for Site Certificate to the issued Site Certificate itself. That paper trail shows a project that cleared a rigorous state review process, creating a detailed administrative record and giving developers more certainty about the durability of a successful permit.
The Nolin Hills example is instructive because it demonstrates what happens when state siting authority actually functions. Rather than fighting a patchwork of county zoning boards, the developer submitted to a single, technically grounded review focused on environmental impacts, system reliability, and land-use compatibility. Oregon’s energy information site maintains public records of these proceedings, creating transparency that can reduce the kind of misinformation that often fuels local opposition. Still, state siting councils have limited bandwidth. They work for large projects that justify the administrative cost, but smaller installations remain exposed to local rules that can quietly kill them, leaving an uneven landscape in which some communities can host significant clean energy build-outs while others effectively wall them off.
Federal Backstop Authority Remains Narrow
Even when generation projects clear local and state hurdles, the electricity they produce needs transmission lines to reach customers. Transmission siting faces its own version of the same problem: multiple state and local jurisdictions, each with the power to delay or deny. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission responded by issuing new backstop procedures in Order No. 1977, giving the agency limited authority to approve certain interstate transmission lines when state processes stall or fail. FERC followed that with Order 1977-A, a rehearing order issued on October 17, 2024, that added clarifications on how the backstop process works in practice, including what constitutes a failure to act by a state and how developers must demonstrate that they have pursued state-level options in good faith.
The key word in both orders is “limited.” Transmission siting remains largely state-driven under Order 1977, and FERC can step in only after a project has been stuck in state review for an extended period or after a state has denied approval under conditions that meet the federal standard. That means local opposition can still shape the route, timing, and feasibility of new lines, especially when state regulators are reluctant to invoke federal help. The backstop authority is best understood as a last resort rather than a comprehensive solution: it may unblock a handful of nationally significant projects, but it does not erase the patchwork of local zoning and setback rules that continue to constrain where both transmission corridors and the generation projects they connect can be built.
Balancing Local Control With System Needs
Taken together, these examples show a spectrum of responses to the same underlying tension. At one end are counties using expansive setbacks and zoning tools to stop wind and solar projects without ever saying so explicitly. In the middle are state-level mechanisms like Michigan’s PA 233 and Oregon’s Energy Facility Siting Council, which preserve local input but prevent a single jurisdiction from exercising an unreviewable veto over regionally important infrastructure. At the far end is FERC’s backstop authority, which applies only in narrow circumstances but signals that the federal government is willing, at least in principle, to step in when state and local processes fail to deliver projects that broader policy goals require.
None of these approaches fully resolves the conflict between local preferences and system-wide needs. Rural communities that host wind turbines, solar arrays, or transmission towers often see limited direct benefit compared with the scale of the visual and land-use changes they experience. Yet the Nature Energy research on setback-driven land losses makes clear that allowing every town or county to draw its own exclusion zones without guardrails can make national climate and reliability targets mathematically unreachable. The emerging policy experiments in Michigan, Oregon, and at FERC suggest a direction: maintain meaningful local participation, but pair it with state or federal backstops, transparent records, and clear standards so that land-use tools cannot be quietly repurposed into de facto bans on the infrastructure the energy transition requires.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
