Streetsboro extends solar moratorium while it finalizes zoning changes

Anyone wishing to go solar in Streetsboro will have to wait: City Council on Aug. 11 extended its moratorium on solar facilities another six months while it finalizes an amendment to the zoning code.

The moratorium does not affect solar electric generation facilities designated by state law as “major utility facilities.” Those installations, which the city has no authority to control, can generate at least 50 megawatts annually.

Under the terms of the proposed zoning code amendment, anyone wishing to install solar panels on their rooftops or grounds would have to obtain a “small solar zoning certificate.”

Non-residential applicants who wish to install more than 25 panels would have to complete the city’s site plan review or site plan amendment review process and obtain the planning commission’s approval before being granted a small solar zoning certificate.

Rooftop systems would not be permitted to exceed the roof’s highest peak. It could cover the entire roof but not extend beyond it. Ground systems would have to follow existing zoning codes for detached accessory buildings, would be limited to a quarter of the lot’s usable building area and couldn’t exceed 6 feet from grade.

The property owner would have to install a visual buffer of some sort and would have to provide the city with both a maintenance and dismantling plan.

Lighting would have to be focused inward toward the equipment, be downlit and shielded, and not spill over onto adjacent properties or rights-of-ways.

A public hearing on the proposed zoning code amendment is set for Aug. 25, after which council will consider its adoption. Should Streetsboro finalize its zoning code as it relates to solar installations within six months, the moratorium would automatically expire, council members agreed.

Council’s decision to extend the moratorium follows its July 28 directive to city Economic Development Director Patrick O’Malia to research whether or not the proposed zoning amendment would impact business recruitment or retention. His answer is a single word: no.

“Industrial companies are automating more to deal with the challenge of less available and more expensive labor and their power demands grow with every new machine,” O’Malia wrote. “Electrical energy is now, and for the foreseeable future will be, a major hurdle for us in recruitment and retention of industrial companies.”

With three acres of open ground, even L’Oreal, the city’s largest industrial property, would not be able to generate enough electricity from 3,750 ground-mounted solar panels to power three average-size homes, O’Malia informed council members in an Aug. 6 memo.

O’Malia also cited the cost of installing solar panels, maintenance issues and figuring out how to wire them into the existing electric system.

However, EnergySage, a Boston company that operates an online comparison marketplace for clean energy products, states that the typical home in the U.S. needs 15-22 solar panels to fully offset utility bills with solar. According to EnergySage, the average cost of a residential solar array — including inverters, racking equipment, wiring and installation — is about $30,000, with the panels themselves only accounting for 12% of that sum.

O’Malia also stated that, as it is, cost-effective technology that stores energy solar panels generate doesn’t exist.

ConsumerAffairs, a private, non-governmental entity, estimates the average homeowner can expect to pay $7,000-$18,000 for battery storage. The number of batteries depends on the system size, the number of circuits that need to be backed up and the desired backup duration.

Solar installations “will continue to be a big deal for those that care,” and for Europeans and companies “that are selling up the value chain where virtue signaling is important,” O’Malia wrote.

Stating that the ROI (return on investment) is insufficient, O’Malia opined that solar arrays might provide a limited benefit:

• European companies, which he said take carbon footprints seriously, might install them regardless of the expense because their managers receive bonuses for reducing reliance on non-green sources.
• American companies “may want to go green because they get express scoring points when bidding for work with larger companies,” he wrote. Explaining, he said an international conglomerate may or may not care about their environmental impact, but the companies that sell to may want to see green initiatives. The large companies don’t do it for the ROI of solar but for the sales contracts, he said.
• Referencing President Donald Trump’s executive orders of Jan. 20 and April 8, O’Malia said the country’s power grid is “on borrowed time” and “will have increased demand by energy-hungry AI data centers.”

In the Jan. 20 order, Trump declared a national energy emergency, and blamed “the previous administration” for what he stated is America’s “precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid.” 

The order opened federal lands to the domestic energy resource industry; authorized the Secretary of Energy to allow the year-round sale of E15 gasoline; and fastracked all infrastructure, energy, environmental and natural resource projects. 

In E.O. 14262, signed April 8, Trump declared that technological advancements, including the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers, significantly strain the country’s electric grid. The order authorizes companies to use “all available power generation resources, particularly those secure, redundant fuel supplies that are capable of extended operation.”

Also on April 8, Trump issued executive orders to invigorate the nation’s coal industry and to remove “all illegitimate impediments” to domestic energy resource development, including oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel, critical mineral and nuclear energy.