Floyd County will consider commercial solar project moratorium

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County Board of Supervisors appears ready to enact a county moratorium on commercial solar energy projects, to go along with its current moratorium on commercial wind and battery storage projects.

The board had a discussion item on its regular meeting agenda Monday morning regarding a solar energy moratorium, and both Supervisor Chair Dennis Kiefer and Supervisor Boyd Campbell expressed a need for such a measure, perhaps “indefinitely.”

Regarding commercial solar energy, Keifer said he had been approached by county residents about a moratorium. It has been reported that two companies are working on potential solar projects in the county.

“We haven’t done anything, we haven’t even talked about it,” Keifer said. “The wind turbines have been a big item, but I think we need to consider to do some kind of a moratorium, possibly, on solar and battery storage in the county, too.”

Supervisor Gloria Carr said that commercial energy battery storage was already a part of an existing county moratorium on commercial wind power, but she agreed with the other supervisors that battery storage had barely been mentioned during discussions on the wind power part of a proposed county ordinance.

Supervisor Campbell is a member of a mediation group currently working in private to come up with a compromise proposal regarding commercial wind power, after more than a year-long effort to revise the county’s commercial wind energy and battery ordinance became bogged down in amendments to a county Planning and Zoning Commission proposal and threatened litigation by one energy company currently working on a Floyd County project.

Campbell said that the mediation group has held two meetings, and another was scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 14.

“The more I delve into the wind thing … I just find that we rushed into this terribly quick,” Campbell said. “There’s so much more information that we’ve gained since we’ve had the meetings, and other things have come down that this thing is mind-boggling, really.”

Campbell said he had been reading a lot on solar energy projects as well, and “I think we really need a long time to gain information and discuss as we go forward.

“I really think that we need to put maybe an indefinite moratorium on this until we see our way through the wind,” Campbell said. “I’m just disappointed that we’ve gone this far in the wind without, I think, being adequately educated, perhaps.”

Supervisor Keifer agreed that an indefinite moratorium on solar projects might be in order, but Supervisor Carr suggested setting a date for a moratorium to end, with the idea that it could be extended as needed, as the county has done with an existing wind and battery project moratorium.

Keifer said he would talk with the county attorney regarding drafting a resolution, possibly to be on next week’s agenda.

Also at the meeting, the supervisors heard requests from the Floyd County Library Association, Floyd County Fair Board and Main Street Charles City for continued funding for those organizations in the Fiscal Year 2025-26 county budget.