Sharing the Sun: Community Solar in Ohio

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THESIS

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in

the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Ruchie Pathak

Graduate Program in Environment and Natural Resources

The Ohio State University

2020

Thesis Committee

Dr. Jeffrey Jacquet, Advisor

Dr. Linda Lobao

Dr. Alia Dietsch

Copyrighted by

Ruchie Pathak

2020

Abstract

Community solar projects allow users to take ownership in the energy they consume. With several such projects emerging rapidly all around the world, within United States and in the state of Ohio, very little is known today regarding the development and community acceptance of these projects. In this scenario, this exploratory research investigates the different reasons as to why a community adopts such renewable energy systems in order to clarify our understanding of the diffusion process. This rapid diffusion of community solar projects in Ohio is examined through the lens of diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory put forward by E. Rogers (1962), which states that the adoption of an innovation is dependent on factors like the characteristics of potential adopters, the attributes of the innovation itself and as well as the setting where the diffusion takes place.

The research involves in-depth interviews with key informants, starting with the current managers of municipally owned/utility-owned solar projects, representatives from area businesses, industry, and community groups in three study sites located within Ohio. The interviews seek to capture the development (process) of three community solar initiatives: the local decision-making process for the projects, project features, types of impacts perceived to have occurred in local communities due to these projects and their future.

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My findings from this exploratory research suggests that it is indeed the local context of these communities that drives the groundwork and development of such renewable energy initiatives, with each of the three study sites having a distinct premise, along with the provision of an incentive program or a policy enacted at either state or federal level (or both), contributing towards the establishment of these solar facilities. Moreover, the findings also suggest that it is the economic benefits of these projects, combined with their relative unobtrusiveness, that ultimately determine their social acceptance. Further, the study highlights an excellent opportunity for future research to evaluate people’s attitudes towards investing in these projects and examine the different characteristics of the project that drive intent to participate and barriers to adoption.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Jacquet, for believing in me and providing me with the motivation and encouragement to help me achieve more than I ever thought I could. I am highly grateful for his continued feedback, support, understanding and patience without which I could not have found my way.

I would also like to extend my gratitude towards my committee members, Dr. Linda Lobao and Dr. Alia Dietsch, for their encouragement and input on my research. I would also like to thank Ms. Anne Junod for her constant support and kind words, Ms. Kathryn Finneran for her assistance, and all the interviewees for their insights, time and cooperation as well.

Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their love and support throughout these years.

Vita

2012-2015………….….…………………………B.Sc. Life Sciences, University of Delhi

(India)

2015-2017…….………...……………………M.Sc. Environmental Studies and Resource

Management, TERI SAS (India)

2018-2019……………………………….……… Graduate Research Associate, The Ohio

State University

January, 2020-present………………..………… Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio

State University

Publications

Jacquet, J., Pathak, R., Haggerty, J. H., Theodori, G. L., & Kroepsch, A. (2020).

Research Fatigue in Shale Energy Boomtowns: Perceptions, Strategies and Obstacles among Social Scientists collecting Human Subjects Data. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Environment and Natural Resources

Specialization: Environmental Social Science

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... iii Acknowledgments ...... v Vita ...... vi List of Tables...... ix List of Figures ...... x Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 2. Literature Review ...... 6 2.1 Renewable Energy ...... 6 2.2 Community Renewable Energy (CRE) Initiatives ...... 8 2.3 Benefits of CRE initiatives ...... 10 2.4 Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy: Why is it important? ...... 13 2.5 Social acceptance of community renewable energy projects: Global trends ...... 13 2.6 Community Solar Projects...... 18 2.7 Municipally owned community solar ...... 24 2.8 Community solar: Trends within the U.S...... 27 2.9 Community solar in Ohio ...... 32 3.0 Research context ...... 35 3.1 Theory of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) ...... 36 3.1.1 Application of DOI theory in current study ...... 44 Chapter 3: Research Methods ...... 47 3.1 Research objectives ...... 47 3.2 Research questions ...... 47 3.3 Study sites...... 48

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3.4 Data collection ...... 57 Chapter 4: Results...... 61 4.1 Site 1: Wyandot Solar Facility, Wyandot County, Salem Township, Ohio (#N=4) ...... 61 4.2 Site 2: Bowling Green Solar Field, Wood County, Ohio (#N=4) ...... 68 4.3 Site 3: Minster Solar Array, Minster, Auglaize County, Ohio (#N=4) ...... 77 Chapter 5: Discussion ...... 87 5.1 Development of community solar...... 87 5.2 Community impacts ...... 90 5.3 Public reactions ...... 94 5.3.1 The “there ain’t much to talk about” attitude ...... 95 5.4 Application of DOI theory ...... 99 5.5 Limitations of the study ...... 105 Chapter 6: Conclusions ...... 107 Bibliography ...... 111 Appendix A. Interview checklist ...... 133 Appendix B. Participant recruitment email ...... 135

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List of Tables

Table 1 Characteristics of an innovation...... 38 Table 2 Solar farms and (recruited) participants in the study...... 60

List of Figures

Figure 1 Energy consumption in U.S. by energy source in 2018...... 7 Figure 2 Summarizes the benefits associated with CRE initiatives...... 12 Figure 3 Community/Shared Solar Program ...... 19 Figure 4 Community Solar at Utility-Sponsored Level ...... 23 Figure 5 Shows the distribution of several solar energy plants in the U.S...... 29 Figure 6 Shows states with community solar policy and utility-driven programs as of December 2017 ...... 30 Figure 7 Shows the states with loan programs for renewable technologies ...... 31 Figure 8 Rate of adoption of an innovation...... 41 Figure 9 Shows the factors influencing the diffusion and adoption process of any innovation...... 44 Figure 10 Map showing the three study sites within Ohio ...... 48 Figure 11 Solar field at Bowling Green...... 50 Figure 12 Shows the tracker on which the panels rotate with the Sun...... 51 Figure 13 Solar facility at the village of Minster...... 53 Figure 14 Battery storage system at Minster...... 54 Figure 15 Solar farm at Wyandot County...... 56 Figure 16 Chart shows the total respondents recruited vs. participated by study sites. .... 59 Figure 17 Factors that influenced the development of community solar projects under study...... 105

Chapter 1. Introduction

Our quality of life is directly linked to the quality of the natural environment and the availability of natural resources around us (Ntanos et al., 2018). The global scientific consensus affirms that the majority of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which have significantly contributed towards worldwide climate change today, are a result of fossil fuel combustions (Weaver, 2017). And the major contributor of these GHG emissions, especially in the U.S., is the residential electricity sector (EPA, 2014; Weaver, 2017). As per a study conducted by Bin and Dowlatabadi (2005), consumer activities such as household energy consumption and personal travel in the U.S. alone accounted for “28% of US energy use and 41% of carbon dioxide emissions” (pp. 197). Moreover, according to the U.S EIA or Energy Information Administration (2019), emissions of carbon dioxide

(CO2) by the U.S. electric power sector in the year 2018 “were 1,763 million metric tons

(MMmt), or about 33% of total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions of 5,269 (MMmt).”

Undoubtedly, there is a need for adoption of clean and efficient energy innovations, especially among the residential sector, in order to contribute substantially towards reducing GHG emissions.

Today, sustainable development has become a normative goal and is increasingly being used for introducing environmental concerns into international politics and for shedding light on trends related to natural resource depletion and planetary accumulation of emissions, especially carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (United Nations, n.d.;

UNEP, 2019). Worldwide, this pursuit for sustainable development has heightened more than ever before, with energy becoming “one of the most fundamental issues” for achieving the same (Oyedepo, 2014, pp. 256). Thus, sustainable energy has become one of the most favorable and promising way to handle the challenges of energy consumption of numerous consumers worldwide (Oyedepo, 2012; Oyedepo, 2014). According to a study by Oyedepo

(2014), Sustainable Energy Development Strategies usually involve “three major technological changes: energy savings on the demand side, efficiency improvements in the energy production, and replacement of fossil fuels by various sources of renewable energy.” And consequently, these large-scale renewable energy implementation plans should include “strategies for integrating renewable sources in coherent energy systems influenced by energy savings and efficiency measures” (Hvelplund, 2006; Oyedepo, 2014, pp. 256).

In the light of this, a new renewable energy practice called “community solar” is diffusing rapidly throughout the world. A community solar project is a “solar electric system, which provides power and/or financial benefits to multiple community members” (Coughlin et al., 2012, pp. 3). Today, many American households and businesses do not have access to

2 renewable energy sources like solar because of the significant expense and logistical challenge of installing solar or because the multi-tenant buildings they rent or live in have roofs that cannot host a solar energy system. A community solar project allows

“homeowners, renters and businesses equal access to the economic and environmental benefits” of solar power generation irrespective of ownership of their home or business or any other physical attributes (SEIA, 2020). Such a project not only expands access to solar energy for all, including low-to-moderate income customers most impacted by a lack of access, but also allows the multiple community subscribers to receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced; thus, building a stronger, distributed, and more resilient electric grid (SEIA, 2020), which is being rapidly adopted nationwide.

At present there are “42 states with at least one community solar project on-line, with

1,523 cumulative megawatts installed through 2018” (SEIA, 2020).

Currently, Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota and Colorado are leading the way in providing community solar resources for their communities (Teliska, 2018). Although the state of Ohio does not have a robust bill in place for endorsing such renewable energy initiatives as compared to the other U.S. states (Colorado, Oregon, etc.,), a number of such community solar initiatives have emerged recently, including a 20 MW solar facility in

Bowling Green, Ohio that “consists of 85,680 solar panels spanning 165.09 acres” (AMP, n.d.); approximately 5 MW solar facility at Celina, Ohio (Green Energy Ohio, 2014); a 4.2

MW AMP Napoleon Solar Facility at Napoleon, Ohio (Green Energy Ohio, 2014); a 3 MW

3 solar project in the Village of Minster (SEIA, 2018), a 1.76 MW Staunton Street solar project in the city of Piqua, Wyandot Solar Facility in Upper Sandusky which was completed in 2010 by developer Juwi Solar Inc., and “has the capacity to generate 10

MW of electricity: enough to power over 1,168 Ohio homes” (SEIA, 2018), among others.

Several other such photovoltaic projects are still pending approval and include AEP’s 400

MW solar project in Appalachian Ohio (Kowalski, 2019), a 150 MW project in Hardin

County by Invenergy (Gearino, 2018) and Hillcrest solar farm with capacity of 200 MW in Brown County, developed by Open Road Renewables (Gearino, 2018). Importantly, in the case of Ohio, these community-owned facilities are owned and operated by the local municipalities, a solution especially well-suited for the municipally owned utility systems operating in the United States.

With many such community (~shared) solar projects emerging across Ohio, the United

States, and the World, very little is known today regarding its development and social acceptance. Since changes in public attitude can “make more radical scenarios about the implementation of renewable energy technologies feasible” (Devine-Wright, 2007, pp. 3), this scenario offers a research opportunity for exploring the different reasons to why a community adopts or not adopts such renewable energy systems in order to clarify our understanding of the diffusion process.

As of May 2019, nine large-scale privately owned solar project proposals representing

1,325 MWs of potential capacity were submitted to the Ohio Power Siting Board, out of which six have been approved, while three are still pending (Hall, Bachelor & Romich,

2019). If all the nine projects were to be constructed in Ohio, its PV solar capacity will

“increase by 630 percent to a total of 1,535 MW”, requiring in total of 16,500 acres of land to support the development (Hall, Bachelor & Romich, 2019, pp. 2). Thus, as a new renewable energy practice, solar is projected to diffuse throughout many energy systems in the coming years, but the success of this diffusion depends on a web of factors like the cultural and political settings in which the diffusion of an innovation takes place, the characteristics of the solar project itself, and the individuals interested in their adoption.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand the development of some of the municipally owned community solar projects in Ohio by

i. exploring the factors that drove/ influenced the establishment of such projects, and

ii. comprehending people’s perceptions towards them.

Chapter 2. Literature Review

2.1 Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is defined as the energy collected from sources that are “virtually inexhaustible in duration but limited in the amount of energy that is available per unit of time” (EIA, 2018). These energy sources are naturally replenishing and include Wind,

Solar, Hydropower, Geothermal and Biomass (that further includes Biodiesel, Ethanol,

Biogas, among others) (EIA, 2018). Since its role in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been recognized, the numbers of renewable energy initiatives have seen an upsurge in the recent years. In order to reduce the use of fossil fuels, a raft of research centered on the renewable, carbon-free technologies is being developed to realize a sustainable energy system (MITEI, 2018). Within U.S. itself, the shares of energy consumption from biofuels, solar and wind have increased, with renewable energy contributing 11% of total energy consumption (see Fig. 1 below) in 2017 and “about 17% of electricity generation in 2018” (EIA, 2019). This use of renewable energy has doubled in the last decade in U.S. as a result of the federal and state policies combined with the declining cost of production (Zeballos-Roig and Wang, 2019; EIA, 2019).

Figure 1 Energy consumption in U.S. by energy source in 2018 (Source: EIA, 2019)

The renewable energy consumption in U.S. is projected to a continuous increase through

2050 (EIA, 2019). Moreover, globally aggressive targets for encouraging the growth of renewable energy sources have also been proposed. For instance, European Council, back in October 2014, agreed on a “target to increase the share of renewable energy to at least

27% of the EU’s energy consumption by 2030” (Strachan et al., 2015, pp. 2); In United

States, states like Oregon have set a target of “25% of electricity from RE sources by 2025

(Delmas and Montes-Sancho 2011), California's target is 33% of electricity from RE by

2020” (Kilinc-Ata, 2016, pp. 83) among few others. Apart from these two, countries like

Japan are also transitioning towards renewables, by launching “a very visionary ‘New

Sunshine’ sustainable energy programme, which will involve the expenditure of some 1.55 7 trillion Yen (around £10 bn) by 2030, with a strong emphasis on ‘photovoltaic’ solar cells”

(Elliott, 2000, pp. 262). Furthermore, interest in various types of biofuels is also growing around the world and a range of other renewable options is also under development,

“including wave energy systems and devices for extracting energy from tidal currents”

(Elliott, 2000, pp. 262).

2.2 Community Renewable Energy (CRE) Initiatives

Since governments alone cannot accomplish the goal of stabilizing the atmospheric GHGs, support from “renewable energy investors and producers, including business organizations, households and civil society actors” will be beneficial (Bauwens, 2016, pp. 278). In this respect, community renewable energy initiatives seem promising as they urge

“collaborative solutions on a local basis to facilitate the development of sustainable energy technologies and practices” (Bauwens, 2016, pp. 278-279). Although the definition of a community renewable energy project is flexible, nonetheless, it has been defined as an

“installation of one or more renewable energy technologies in or close to a rural community, with input from members of that community” (Rogers et al., 2008, pp. 3). Such initiatives are identified by a high degree of community involvement, be it in ownership, management, and/or benefits of projects (Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008). In addition, the project can benefit the community – “either directly through supply of energy to multiple properties or a community facility, or indirectly, through sale of energy generated to the grid” (Rogers et al., 2008, pp. 3). It has been argued that citizen’s participation in the

8 benefit sharing and decision-making processes of such renewable energy projects is crucial as it increases the social acceptability of renewables (Bauwens, 2016). Further, local participation in such initiatives is vital for ensuring financing the transformation of such energy systems.

These initiatives can be entirely community-owned or may involve co-ownership arrangements with the private sector; moreover, these projects may involve the ownership and funding of energy production, which is fed into the grid rather than being locally used, or may combine the locally owned production and consumption of energy (Walker, 2008).

For instance, in the case of Netherlands, community renewable energy projects have taken the form of “grassroots initiatives” that are defined as “local, bottom-up collaborations between citizens, motivated by the desire to supply or produce renewable energy on a local scale” (Oteman et al., 2017). More than “2400 community-driven energy cooperatives” are primarily located in the Northern European countries; with “772 renewable energy cooperatives in Germany in 2014, 500 in Scotland in 2015 and 500 in the Netherlands” in the year 2015 (Kim, 2017). In Denmark, back in 2001, “an estimated 150,000 households owned or held shares in wind turbines (Lauber, 2004), while in Germany an estimated

350,000 individuals owned shares in wind cooperatives” (Walker, 2008, pp. 4403).

2.3 Benefits of CRE initiatives

Research has highlighted that community involvement in such energy initiatives may be beneficial for communities, for the environment, and for the development of renewable energy more generally. For communities engaging in an energy project, there can be numerous benefits. Most significantly, these can include revenue generation for a community that may help in making other community projects more resilient, and “provide a guarantee of income that is not dependent on public-sector grants” (Haggett and Aitken,

2015, pp. 99). Wind farms are the most lucrative form of renewable energy, but Biomass- fired energy projects too have shown to contribute towards local income “through sales of energy and by providing a market for local wood, agricultural wastes and energy crops”

(Walker 2008, pp. 4402).

Moreover, there are social benefits to be gained by the communities as well, and these include “capacity building, increased community spirit and cohesion and greater empowerment” (Haggett and Aitken, 2015, pp. 99). Community initiatives such as community solar also may influence collaborative emission reductions goals, and thus, result in community cohesion (Michaud, 2015). Research suggests that a direct involvement from a bottom-up approach instills a sense of community pride with the project, and that local ownership of energy utilities generate more positive attitudes towards the project as locals perceive higher rates of community benefits including local employment, extra revenue, and increased private development (Jacquet and

Fergen, 2018). Furthermore, it is believed that the participation experience itself may increase an individuals’ understanding of sustainable energy issues and thus, influence acceptance of other renewable energy developments, “including large scale projects, and more active consumption of renewable energy, e.g. switching to green electricity tariffs or installation of domestic renewables” (Rogers et al., 2008, pp. 3). Likewise, it is also believed that such community projects can instill local control in an area, in the sense that if a project development by the private sector is expected to take place, then “actively setting up a community initiative may be seen as a way of maintaining local control”

(Walker, 2008, pp. 4402).

In addition, there are benefits beyond the community, especially for developers who are partners in a community investment project. These may be “instrumental benefits”

(projects which have community involvement are more likely to be permitted quickly); there may also be “normative benefits” (where community involvement can lead to improved relations between a community and a developer); or “substantive benefits” to involvement and ownership (Haggett and Aitken, 2015, pp. 99). In general, the image of renewables can benefit from greater community involvement, as it will aid in not only their social acceptance, but will serve to restore the “balance between inter/national benefits and local disbenefits of renewable energy developments” (Haggett and Aitken, 2015, pp. 99).

Figure 2 Summarizes the benefits associated with CRE initiatives.

2.4 Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy: Why is it important?

Devine-Wright in his paper (2007) titled “Reconsidering public acceptance of renewable energy technologies: a critical review” argues for recognition of public acceptance as an important factor shaping the widespread implementation of renewable energy technologies and in the achievement of energy policy targets. Despite a range of studies being carried out to evaluate public attitudes towards renewable energy technologies, even now the clear understanding of the dynamics shaping public acceptance remains obscure. Regardless of this, even today institutions and organizations simply assume that only education and/or awareness creation (about these technologies), will help in creating favorable attitudes

(Devine-Wright, 2007). There is a need to capture other psychological and contextual factors apart from just “attempting to identify a surfeit or deficit in public understanding”

(Devine-Wright, 2007, pp. 10). Further, the ‘social representations’ of renewable energy technologies, that is, “how individuals think about, talk about and use energy technologies” or relate to them, can play a crucial part in boosting positive public responses as well (pp.

10-11).

2.5 Social acceptance of community renewable energy projects: Global trends

In a paper by Gonzalez et al. (2016), titled “On the Acceptance and Sustainability of

Renewable Energy Projects”, the authors have surmised that community acceptance does play a vital role in ensuring “access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” Moreover, providing a livelihood for the communities further guarantees

13 acceptance of such projects (Gonzalez et al, 2016).

In another study to understand energy perceptions in four urban locations (with two each) in U.S. and UK, conducted by Thomas et al. (2018), it was concluded that although renewable sources in general were perceived as “less invasive”, “more natural” and

“cleaner” as compared to the conventional fossil fuels, it was wind energy that was preferred by people because of the amount of energy produced and the employment opportunities it offered. Solar energy was considered problematic due to the “low number of jobs and relatively small amount of power generated.” Apart from this, concerns over the amount of land covered by the solar panels and its potential impacts upon visual amenity were also mentioned.

On the contrary, in his study on Solar Parks, Wolfe (2018) explains why solar parks of

Carissa Plain and Hesperia in California have been accepted by the local communities. The reasons include the “reversible” nature of solar technology, meaning, such solar facilities developed on agricultural ground allow the sites to be later restored to a more intensive agricultural use. In addition, since solar systems are “silent, clean and unobtrusive” as compared to wind power, they have proved to be one of the most acceptable and less contentious of the renewable energy technologies.

In another study (2015) on evaluating “Individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level”, the authors mention that one of the reasons people may decide to invest in a technology initiative jointly is because they can divide, and reduce their transaction costs; moreover, such community-based projects are more likely to get accepted by the local residents than external projects, and allow for taking higher risks since, the risk and also its consequences gets distributed among all the group members

(Dóci and Vasileiadou, 2015, pp. 43).

Süsser and Kannen in their paper (2017) empirically investigated how people in North

Frisia (Germany) perceive community-based renewables and were able to demonstrate that

“community-based renewable-energy transition causes a defined community transition.”

Their research disclosed that community renewables enabled them (people) to “construct the future of their local place and contributes to self-sustained, long-term regional development in rural areas.”

In a study conducted in Cumbria, UK, by Rogers et al. (2008), the authors observed that the participants were more willing to support a community renewable energy project rather than participating in one due to the “perceived difficulty of establishing an energy project, especially regarding the technical aspects of renewables and community size/capacity, and a lack of resources in terms of funding, experience and institutional support” (pp. 15). From their research it was deduced that for such a community renewable energy project to be

15 successful, institutional support in terms of knowledge and skill development is necessary for encouraging community support. This is also confirmed in another study, according to which supportive local institutions of various forms are as essential to success as key committed individuals or entrepreneurs. For example, “the cooperative wind turbine project at Bro Dyfi in Wales, for example, was led by people with a history of grassroots work connected to the nearby Centre for Alternative Technology, providing distinctive expertise that is not readily available elsewhere” (Walker, 2008, pp. 4403).

Another study on similar lines as above by Wüstenhagen et al. (2007) asserts that those forms of technology cooperation in which active participants are from various sectors and interact continuously throughout the process is most effective in eliciting social acceptance of renewable energy innovations.

Peters et al., highlight in their paper (2018) the importance of a marketing strategy that prioritizes participation, engagement and social norms and ideals of community membership for these programs to be successfully developed. Hoffman and Pippert (2014) also concluded in their research that although economic incentives are never far from a subscriber’s mind, but it is “naïve” to ignore a participant’s sense of attachment to and concern for both community and environment. Veelen and Haggett in their paper (2017) too looked at the role played by this place attachment and concluded that place attachment was indeed imperative for informing opinions on community energy projects in two ways:

16 either it can act as a driver to start a project, or conversely, it can also form a source of protest against community energy projects, since, according to the authors “place attachment determined perceptions of what ‘fitted’ in a landscape; and perceptions of this fit were often more important than ‘actual’ environmental impact.”

Hicks and Ison in their paper (2011) on “Community-owned renewable energy (CRE):

Opportunities for rural Australia” highlight the benefits and limitations of community renewable energy projects through two case studies, and moreover state that the benefits of these projects will be difficult to realize on a large scale for the community “without a supportive state and federal government policy context.” For example, on one hand CRE can create an energy self-sufficient community by creating a mini electricity grid that feeds locally produced renewable energy straight to its local consumers. However, on other hand, this matching of “load profiles is a complex process, requiring skills and resources to manage” (pp. 249). Additionally, if a community has easy access to the existing electricity grid then there is very little incentive for them to create such a self-sufficient energy system.

A report by Margolis and Zuboy (2006) for NREL put forward few “non-technical barriers to solar energy use” and these include lack of government policies supporting renewable energy use, difficulty overcoming already established energy systems, failure to account for all costs and benefits of energy choices, lack of community inclusion in renewable energy projects, lack of adequate standards and net-metering guidelines, poor perception 17 by public of renewable energy system aesthetics, inadequate financing options for these projects and inadequate information dissemination and workforce skill training.

Carlisle et al. (2015) in their paper, “Public attitudes regarding large-scale solar energy development in the U.S.”, conclude that communities especially in southwest of U.S. overwhelmingly support the development of large, utility-scale solar because of “short term benefits, such as using local services for contractors; and longer term benefits, such

[as] developing local infrastructure, invigorating [areas] with improved facilities, and setting up training schemes so that local people could be employed in the industry.”

2.6 Community Solar Projects

Community solar, also known as solar gardens or solar farms (see Fig. 3), refers to both community-owned and third-party-owned installations (Teliska, 2018) that allows approx.

“49% of Americans without the traditional solar access”, to reap both economic and environmental benefits of solar (US EPA, 2016). Their primary purpose is to allow members of a community the prospect to “share the benefits of solar power even if they cannot or prefer not to install solar panels on their property” (EnergySage, 2020).

Participants benefit from the electricity generated by these farms, as it costs less than the price they would typically pay to their utilities (EnergySage, 2020).

Figure 3 Community/Shared Solar Program (Source: US EPA, 2016)

These programs have experienced rapid growth within the U.S., with their numbers “up from 6 states in 2010” (EPA, 2016) to “42 states with at least one community solar project on-line” as per Q2 2018 (SEIA, 2018). Community shared solar backers have recognized the fact that the on-site solar market comprises only one part of the total market for solar energy, as only 22-27% of residential rooftops are well-suited for photovoltaic (PV) systems according to a study by the NREL 2008 (Coughlin et al., 2012). Thus, community solar expands this solar power access for those who choose not to install a residential system for financial or other reasons (Coughlin et al., 2012).

Several subscription models exist for these systems, from directly buying a share of panels in a solar farm to simply tapping into the power generated. In simple words, community solar programs are typically offered in following two arrangements (EnergySage, 2020):

• Ownership: In this format, participants are allowed to own some of the panels or a

share in the project, that is, either they “own a set number of panels in the array or, a

certain number of kilowatts (e.g. 5kW) out of the solar project’s total capacity.”

Although, the participants get to benefit from the power produced by their share of the

solar panels, however, their ‘share’ is limited, in the sense, that they can only purchase

enough shares that meets with their annual electricity usage. Moreover, this type of

model can be a bit convoluted “to develop and administer, and the ownership factor

can be a barrier to entry for those who do not have the capital or credit rating necessary

to get involved” (EnergySage, 2020).

• Subscription: This format allows participants to subscribe and pay a lower price for

the electricity sourced from a community solar farm. In this model, individuals do not

own the panels, instead they just purchase the power at a lower rate. In this type of

model, participation is more fluid, that is, “a third party or a utility company will

develop and own the project (sometimes investing in it with the aim of taking advantage

of associated tax credits) and extend an opportunity to the public to participate”

(EnergySage, 2020). This type of format is both easy to sign up and cancel. Though

there are drawbacks on participation with these subscription programs, since

“depending on your state and/or utility company, you may need to reside within a

certain distance from the community solar project (i.e. your utility's coverage area) in

order to join the community solar program” (EnergySage, 2020).

Primarily, following are the four ways in which a community solar project can be organized, based either on ownership or subscription format:

1. Utility-Sponsored model: A utility or third party (such as an installer/ developer) owns

or operates a project (see Fig. 4) that is open to voluntary ratepayer participation

(Coughlin et al., 2012). The utility will own the array, then sell or lease shares to its

customers, who in turn, may purchase a fixed amount of electricity at a set rate for a

term as long as 20 years, thus, providing “protection and stability against rising rates

for grid electricity” (SEIA, 2020).

2. Special Purpose Entity (SPE) model: In this model, individual investors join in a

business enterprise, that is SPE, specifically to develop a community solar project (The

Solar Farm Co-Op, n.d.; Sendy, 2020). “The business may design, construct, and own

the facility, then work with the local utility to allocate benefits to subscribers” (SEIA,

2020). Through this model, corporations may be able to take advantage of incentives

and tax credits that otherwise maybe unavailable to utilities (SEIA, 2020).

3. Nonprofit (“Buy a Brick) model: Donors/members contribute to a community

installation in low-income and/or underserved areas, owned by a charitable nonprofit

corporation (The Solar Farm Co-Op, n.d.; Sendy, 2020). This type of approach often

includes job-training initiatives that aim to improve the local economy (Sendy, 2020).

4. On-bill crediting model: This model allows local resident(s) and business(s) to invest

in a portion of a local solar facility (~ownership arrangement as mentioned above) and

in return, receive a credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced

(SEIA, 2020). Credits may be provided in the form of kilowatt hour (kWh) offsets to

the customer’s consumption, or monetary credits to the customer’s bill. For instance,

“if there were 10 shares total for a community solar project and you invested in 2 shares,

you would receive kWh credits on your bill equal to the amount of energy your 2 shares

produced” (Sendy, 2020). Because of diverse state laws and regulations, the rate at

which the energy is valued and even the amount of credits an individual can receive is

dependent on geographical area (SEIA, 2020; Sendy, 2020).

In general, community solar programs have an infrastructure which allows for solar power to be shared by the community, and offers members with some kind of benefit such as receive bill credits, payments, or direct access to solar power on a reduced price to run their homes and businesses (Sendy, 2020).

Figure 4 Community Solar at Utility-Sponsored Level (Source: US EPA, 2016)

According to Stanton and Kline (2016), following are the typical benefits of community solar program for its participating customers:

i. Protection from electricity cost increases, because of fixing rates on long-term

agreements;

ii. “Lower electric bills from the outset, because the per unit bill credit is greater than

the per unit cost of the community solar subscription; and, iii. Long-term financial benefits, where the fixed price of the customer’s share of a

solar production facility, including any carrying costs, is expected to be repaid, with

interest, through the customer’s aggregated bill credits” (Stanton and Kline, 2016,

pp. 3).

In addition, according to a latest report by the US Department of Energy (DOE), “the U.S. solar power business employs 43% of the electric power generation sectors workforce – that’s more than fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas combined” (Bulman, 2017; Clearway

Community Solar, 2020), thus, providing economic benefits for all!

2.7 Municipally owned community solar

In the U.S., electric utilities can be divided into three groups, based on who owns them: investor-owned utilities, which are privately owned and work to generate profits that are distributed among shareholders; electric cooperatives, which are private entities that are governed by their customers and operate as not-for-profit enterprises; and finally, municipal utilities, which are owned by local governments and like co-ops, operate as not- for-profit ventures that directly serve their members (The Solar Foundation, 2013).

“In terms of number of customers served, IOUs are by far the largest type of utility – in

2011, they served 67% of U.S. customers with over 2 billion megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity” (The Solar Foundation, 2013, pp. 1). While the co-ops and municipal utilities accounted for 14% and 15% of the nation’s retail demand for electricity, respectively (The

Solar Foundation, 2013). According to Clean Energy Collective (2018), municipal utilities are now serving over 2,000 communities in America. Though municipal utilities account

24 for fewer customers than IOUs, they still outnumber them, with “nearly 1,950 municipal utilities, compared with approximately 215 IOUs” in 2011 (The Solar Foundation, 2013, pp. 2).

This public power business model, or municipal ownership as it’s commonly known, refers to an “American tradition rooted in community” (Patterson, 2018). These utilities have been in place since the 1880s, with the first ever public power utility implemented “on the evening of March 31, 1880, in the farm community of Wabash, Indiana” (Patterson, 2018).

In some communities this public power model was adopted simply “as a practical decision made by community leaders who wanted to improve the quality of their citizens’ lives”

(Patterson, 2018). On the other hand, there were some communities that were just not attracted to private electric companies, and “when the private sector failed to meet their needs”, they simply took matters into their own hands (Patterson, 2018).

Municipal utilities vary greatly in size, with some providing electricity to only a handful of customers, while the largest municipal utility like the Los Angeles Department of Water

& Power, serves nearly 1.5 million consumers (The Solar Foundation, 2013). These utilities follow a quite simple model and are subjected to less state regulatory oversight because the authority normally rests with the local officials rather than with state regulatory bodies, as in the case of IOUs (The Solar Foundation, 2013). These officials are elected by

25 the residents themselves. And as a result, customers or residents are the real owners in this model and through elected or appointed governing boards (~city councils), they in a way have the real decision-making authority for their utilities as well (Patterson, 2018). Thus, this approach allows the local officials to act more quickly, to innovate in new ways, and to focus only on providing their local customers with electricity and a reliable service on a not-for-profit basis (Patterson, 2018; The Solar Foundation, 2013).

Moreover, even the residents in communities with municipally owned electric utilities are in favor of this model because they feel that public power is a fair way to raise revenue since the money spent on electricity stays in the community and gets re-invested there (The

Solar Foundation, 2013). Further, the communities favoring municipal power, especially in case of Wyoming, do not think of their utility bill as a form of taxation, rather believe

“that gains would be made in lower costs and better service” (Blevins, 1976, pp. 244-245).

Moreover, municipal utilities have been called the ‘vanguard’ of solar development, especially because of “some sustainability-focused or environmentally-conscious communities, where customers are increasingly concerned with developing renewable energy resources, these positive attributes of public power can translate into effective or innovative initiatives to promote renewables broadly, and solar in particular” (The Solar

Foundation, 2013). Furthermore, these utilities have also taken the lead in the

26 implementation of community solar projects within the United States (Coughlin et al.,

2010, pp. 7). According to Augustine and McGavisk (2016), “of the utility sponsored shared solar programs operational to date, two-thirds are operated by municipal or cooperative utilities. Investor-owned utilities have tended to proceed more cautiously, with many responding to, or waiting to respond to, enabling legislation” (pp. 37).

Recently, in 2018, Cincinnati, a city in Ohio, “was awarded a $2.5 million Bloomberg

Philanthropies grant that was aimed to provide technical assistance to cities eager to address climate change” (Peischel, 2020). And by the year 2021, the city will have the largest city-established solar farm in America, with approx. 310,000 panels occupying

1,000 acres of city-owned land to provide 100 MW to the city (Peischel, 2020). Moreover, a locally based company called Creekwood Energy, will be the project manager, while,

Hecate Energy, a Chicago-based solar installer and operator, will cover the construction costs and purchase 100 MW of electricity a year (Peischel, 2020).

2.8 Community solar: Trends within the U.S.

It was during and after 2010 when the growth of community solar projects was apparent across the U.S., mainly due to several policy-induced changes in terms of renewable energy

(Weaver, 2017). In the U.S., Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, and Colorado are leading the way in providing community solar resources for their communities (Teliska,

2018). Within Colorado, the Coyote Ridge Community Solar Farms in Fort Collins will be the largest low-income community solar project in the U.S. at 1.95 MW; the production will not only benefit low-income households but as well as affordable housing providers, and non-profits (SEIA, 2018). Kearsarge Energy, a renewable energy project developer and financier based in Boston, announced its first New York Community Solar Farm; located on 12 acres in Oppenheim, New York, the 1.94-MW project is developed, owned and operated by Kearsarge (Misbrener, 2018). “Incorporating 5,544 solar panels, the site will generate 2,300,000-kilowatt hours AC per year, which will be fed into the local utility grid; in addition, the Town of Oppenheim will receive tax revenues over the next 20 years from the project” (Misbrener, 2018). As per 2015 data, Massachusetts is the fourth largest solar market in the U.S, with 1 GW of installed solar; a large percentage of which is contributed by these community solar programs (Langton, 2017). While, “Minnesota is leading the U.S. with the most megawatts installed from community solar gardens”

(Clearway Community Solar, 2020).

Figure 5 Shows the distribution of several solar energy plants (of 1 MW capacity or more) among various states in the U.S. (Map created using ArcGis (online) software by Esri; Source: North American Cooperation on Energy Information (NACEI), 2017)

In general, a large percentage of the community solar projects across the U.S. are currently run by either electric cooperatives or municipally owned electric utilities, and seemingly these will play a major role in the expansion of community solar in the immediate future

(Michaud, 2017). At present, only 18 states and the District of Columbia have community solar policies or programs in place (see Fig. 6) but many more are considering programs to expand consumer access to clean energy (Cook and Shah, 2018). For instance, a state senate bill in Oregon: ‘Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Plan’, directs the Oregon

Public Utility Commission (OPUC) to establish a community solar program for Investor-

Owned Utilities (IOUs), thus, offering the citizens of Portland an option for participation

29 in community solar projects in the near future (Weaver, 2017).

Figure 6 Shows states with community solar policy and utility-driven programs as of December 2017 (Source: Cook and Shah, 2018)

Some states in the U.S. may also have a provision of certain ‘loan programs’ that may

“offer lower interest loans or other financing options to individuals and businesses to reduce the upfront costs of purchasing and installing renewable energy technologies”

(Ballotpedia, n.d.). Ohio was one of 36 states (see Fig. 7 below), as of March 2015, having a state-run loan program, which distributes loans for solar energy, hydroelectric power, and landfill methane gas (Ballotpedia, n.d.).

Figure 7 Shows the states with loan programs for renewable technologies (Source: Ballotpedia, n.d.)

2.9 Community solar in Ohio

To help Ohio’s citizens adopt renewable energy sources locally, the state has put into place numerous ‘incentive programs’ to make these forms of renewables less expensive. Among them is a ‘renewable portfolio standard’ (RPS), also known as a renewable electricity standard, which is a mandate formulated to increase the amount of renewable energy production and use. As per these standards, “a utility company can be required by a state to have a certain percentage of its electricity come from certain renewable energy resources” (Ballotpedia, n.d.). And in order to fulfill these requirements, in return, the state provides the utilities with tax credits (Ballotpedia, n.d.). Ohio state’s legislature enacted the state's standards back in 2008 and revised them in 2014, under which all investor-owned utilities in the state were required to obtain 12.5% of their electricity sales from renewable sources by the year 2026 (Ballotpedia, n.d.).

However, recently a law called House Bill (HB) 6, passed by lawmakers last summer to bolster the financial situation of two Ohio nuclear plants, makes significant changes to both the Renewable Portfolio Standard and Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS)

(Swartsell, 2019), by lowering the renewable energy targets from 12.5% to 8.5% by 2026

(Hromalik, 2019). This legislation comes at a time when already Ohio’s renewable energy production is lagging as compared to other states, with renewable sources contributing a low 2.7% of Ohio’s electricity generation back in 2018 (Clemmer, 2019). 32

However, irrespective of the changes in legislation, many community solar programs have emerged recently, such as a 1-MW solar array on the Glass Farm of the Village of Yellow

Springs, in Greene County that was developed in agreement with AEP Onsite Partners, a division of American Electric Power, and brings the share of renewable energy in the

Village’s electricity portfolio to 93 percent (Bachman, 2017). According to the agreement,

3,024 panels on about 6.25 acres of village property, “which mechanically move to track the sun throughout the day, will generate an estimated 1,441,800 kilowatt-hours in the first year, about 4.2 percent of total village use” (Bachman, 2017). In addition, “in 2018 through a community solar program call OurSolar Buckeye Power - Ohio’s generation and transmission cooperative - build new solar panel arrays at several co-op locations throughout Ohio, bringing more emission-free energy to Ohio’s electric cooperatives”, with North Western Electric Cooperative being one of the sites, with a 50-kilowatt array installed at their office (North Western Electric Cooperative Inc., 2020). Further, “Ohio

Solar United Neighborhoods (OH SUN) has developed several cooperative programs throughout the state as well, including Appalachian Ohio (Athens area), Cuyahoga County,

Dayton, Delaware County, Huntington area, Lorain County, the Mid-Ohio Valley, and

Worthington” (Michaud, 2017).

Recently, the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) has approved two more solar projects:

“Hecate Energy’s 300 MWac Highland Solar Farm in Highland County, as well as

Invenergy’s 170 MWac Hardin Solar Energy Center 2 in Hardin County, which is paired

33 with a 60 MWac battery” (Roselund, 2019). Apart from these two, three more projects have been proposed, which includes: Savion, of Lenexa, Kansas, has proposed two projects, one in Madison County called the Madison Field Solar Project, and a second in Pickaway

County called the Atlanta Farms Solar Project, and third in Fairfield and Oak Run townships in Madison County, proposed by First Solar called the Big Plain Solar

(Williams, 2019). It is said that each project will be about the same size of 180 to 200 megawatts and would require farmland of more than 1,000 acres, and if approved, construction will begin in 2021 (Williams, 2019).

Moreover, 1.76MW (approx.) capacity of solar farm called ‘The Staunton Street solar field’, which is an eight-acre site, has been providing power to the city of Piqua since the month of July 2018 (Wildow, 2018). Last year, a second solar field was also completed in

Piqua, developed by NextEra “on 86 acres off of Manier and McKinley avenues and is now producing approx. 12.625 megawatts at its peak performance” (Wildow, 2019). More recently, a 4MW solar array, comprising of 17,000 solar panels that sits on 36 acres of land in the village of Grafton became operational this year, and is expected to help reduce the cost of electricity for Grafton's 2,700 residents (Wells, 2020). The solar farm called

‘Project Beacon’ was devised in December 2018, “when Grafton Public Power & Light made an agreement with EITRI Foundry of Orlando, Florida, in a 30-year plan to supply energy for the village” (WKYC, 2019).

Other solar projects within the state include: a 1.1 MW solar field constructed by Advanced

Distributed Generation on the University of Toledo campus (The University of Toledo,

2020); 1.2MW solar installation at the airbase for 180th Fighter Wing of the Ohio Air

National Guard in Toledo (Henry, 2010); 1.1 MW solar field built by the Dayton Power and Light Company in Dayton, Ohio (Business wire, 2010); a 9.8MWdc solar array on the

Campbell Soup Company property, developed by BNB (bnbrenewables.com, n.d.); a

2.27MW solar installation on the Oberlin College campus, which helps meet 12% of the college’s electricity needs (Uhlenhuth, 2014); 2.15 MW solar array developed by Melink

Corporation for Cedarville University (Parker, 2020), and a 3MW solar array installed by

Solar Planet in the city of Wapakoneta (HomeTown Stations, 2013).

3.0 Research context

Community solar, as discussed above, has recently emerged as a new energy practice and has the potential to grow even further; the next few years are said to be crucial for the community solar market in the U.S. as it is expected to add as much as “3 gigawatts; a single MW of solar powers 164 homes, and 3 GW will be able to power almost half a million homes” (SEIA, 2018). Thus, as an energy innovation, the diffusion of community solar projects within Ohio can be examined through the lens of diffusion of innovation

(DOI) theory. According to this theory, the adoption of an innovation occurs in stages and is under the influence of factors such as the attributes of the innovation itself, the setting in which the diffusion takes place, communication channels and as well as the characteristics 35 of the potential adopters, all of these affect the rates of adoption of an innovation (Rogers,

1995). Therefore, DOI theory can play an imperative role towards understanding the process for the successful implementation of renewable energy technologies. Hence, in this study, I will try to utilize this DOI theory to try to look at the reasons why local community(s) and/or key stakeholders (including utilities, developers, etc.) adopt such community renewable initiatives and how they perceive the same. Moreover, the study will also try to comprehend how the attributes of an innovation itself play a role in shaping support and/or encouraging adoption of such practices.

3.1 Theory of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI)

The theory of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) is a theory of communication (Cheng et al.,

2004), which was first discussed back in 1903 by a French sociologist named Gabriel

Tarde, followed by Ryan and Gross who based on their study on adoption of hybrid corn seed introduced the concept of adopter categories in 1943, which were later used in this theory popularized by Everett Rogers (Kaminski, 2011). Rogers discussed this concept in his book ‘Diffusion of Innovations’ that was first published in 1962 and is now the second- most cited book in the social sciences (The Norman Lear Center, 2020), with five editions so far (Cheng et al., 2004).

According to Rogers, diffusion is “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 10). Thus, this process of diffusion of any innovation or any new idea, practice, product, and so on, is under the influence of four elements, which are: the innovation, communication channels, time and the social system (Rogers, 1995). In order to understand why some innovations are successfully adopted, while others are not, it is imperative to examine the attributes of an innovation itself. As stated by Rogers (1995),

“the characteristics of innovations, as perceived by individuals, help to explain their different rate of adoption” (pp. 15). And these include its relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability and (less) complexity, and are described briefly in the following table.

Table 1 Characteristics of an innovation.

Attributes of innovation Description

Relative advantage The degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than

the current practices and/or ideas.

Observability The degree to which the results of an innovation are palpable

or visible to people (adopters).

Trialability The degree to which an innovation may be experimented

with or experienced on a limited basis.

Compatibility The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being

consistent with the existing values, experiences, and needs

of potential adopters.

Complexity The degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult

to understand and/or use.

(Source: Rogers, 1995, pp. 15-16; Kaminski, 2011)

“Innovations that are perceived by individuals as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and less complexity will be adopted more rapidly than other innovations” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 16). However, simply the existence of an innovation will not lead to its diffusion and subsequent adoption; an innovation must be communicated for it to spread and this is where the role of communication channels come in. “The essence of the diffusion process is the information exchange through which one individual communicates a new idea to one or several others” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 18) and this is accomplished through either mass media channels or interpersonal channels. Mass media channels are effective in creating knowledge and awareness about a particular innovation, and comprises of “all those means of transmitting messages that involve a mass medium, such as radio, television, newspapers, and so on, which enable a source of one or a few individuals to reach an audience of many” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 18). Alternatively, interpersonal channels “involve a face-to face exchange between two or more individuals”

(Rogers, 1995, pp. 18), and are more efficient in influencing an individual to accept and adopt a new innovation by changing their attitudes towards it, “especially if the interpersonal channel links two or more individuals who are similar in socioeconomic status, education, or other important ways” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 18).

Time, which is a third element in the diffusion process, is involved in three distinct dimensions of the process. First, in the (1) Innovation-decision process, which involves five stages of adoption of an innovation, beginning from the first knowledge of an

39 innovation, followed by persuasion, decision (acceptance or rejection), implementation and finally confirmation, that is, its adoption; (2) Innovativeness and adopter categories-that is, the “relative earliness/lateness with which an innovation is adopted-compared with other members of a system”, and based on the level of innovativeness there are five adopter categories: innovators or technology enthusiasts, early adopters or visionaries, early majority or pragmatists, late majority or conservatives, and laggards or skeptics; and (3)

Rate of adoption of an innovation in a system, “measured as the number of members of the social system that adopt the innovation in a given time period” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 20-23;

Kaminski, 2011). According to this theory, “when the number of individuals adopting a new idea is plotted on a cumulative frequency basis over time, the resulting distribution is an S-shaped curve” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 23), which is shown in the figure below. Initially, only few individuals are open to the new idea and as a result, adopt the innovation; these are the innovators; but soon the diffusion curve begins to climb, as more and more individuals adopt and spread the word regarding it (~early innovators). Eventually, “the innovation becomes diffused amongst the social system and the trajectory of its adoption begins to level off, as fewer and fewer individuals remain who have not yet adopted it, and finally, the S-shaped curve reaches its saturation point, and the diffusion process is finished” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 23).

Figure 8 Rate of adoption of an innovation. (Source: Kaminski, 2011)

Majority of the innovations have such an ‘S-shaped’ curve, with the slope of the curve varying from innovation to innovation; the S-curve is steep for ideas or innovations that diffuse rapidly, while, it is more gradual for innovations having a slower rate of adoption

(Rogers, 1995, pp. 23).

The fourth and final element is the social system that refers to the groups of people involved in the innovation adoption process and comprises of (a) opinion leaders, who are members of the system in which they exert their influence; (b) change agents take the help of opinion leaders and attempt to “influence clients' innovation-decisions in a direction that is deemed desirable by a change agency”; lastly,(c) an aide, who is less than a change agent and

“intensively contacts clients to influence their innovation-decisions” (Rogers, 1995, pp.

26-28). Additionally, the system also revolves around certain ‘norms’ that are the

“established behavior patterns for the members of a social system” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 37).

These norms tell an individual what behavior is expected and may act as a barrier to adoption. Thus, this theory can serve as an exhaustive framework for comprehending the diffusion process of any innovation or a new practice like community solar projects and correspondingly, in identifying the underlying factors driving its diffusion (Chang, 2010).

While, Rogers model provides the ‘adopters perspective’ on the diffusion and adoption of an innovation by individuals and/or households. On the other hand, Lawrence Brown’s market and infrastructure context of adoption provides the supply-side, that is, propagator’s or developer’s perspective on the process of diffusion of innovation. In his book,

Innovation Diffusion: A New Perspective (1981, Methuen), he “provided the definitive account of the ongoing adoption and spread of new products and techniques, with attention to the social and geographic processes that supported transformative technologies, products, and behaviors” (AAG, n.d.). According to Brown, prior to adoption of any innovation, development agencies are established, which employ certain strategies to induce distribution and adoption (of an innovation) in their service or market areas (Brown,

1981). There are four such strategies that are particularly relevant to the spatial pattern of diffusion and includes: (1) development of infrastructure and organizational capabilities,

42 which allows the diffusion process to be implemented, maintained and expanded; (2) pricing, which changes over time and varies over space according to the location of the potential adopters; (3) promotional communications that are used for delivering information about a new idea or innovation to the individuals in order to encourage adoption; finally, (4) market selection and segmentation, “that is, identification of the clientele for the innovation and targeting in differential ways upon segments of that clientele” (Brown, 1981, pp. 100-101). Furthermore, in order to better understand the influence of these strategies upon adoption decisions, it is useful to consider separately the objective (~material aspects) and subjective attributes (~adopter’s perspective) of an innovation, that is, “infrastructure provision and pricing affect the objective attributes of the innovation, while market selection and segmentation and promotional communications primarily affect the potential adopter's beliefs about and evaluation of these attributes, or the subjective attributes of the innovation” (Brown, 1981, pp. 101). Moreover, these strategies create varying levels of access to the innovation depending upon an individual’s economic, social, and locational characteristics, and as a result, adds to the constraints within which adoption takes place (Brown, 1981, pp. 144). Thus, together both the models

(see Fig. 9) provide a comprehensive understanding of this process, from development to adoption of an innovation.

Figure 9 Shows the factors influencing the diffusion and adoption process of any innovation. Based on Rogers (1995) and Brown’s (1981) DOI model. (Adapted from Sahin, 2006; Zanello et al., 2016)

3.1.1 Application of DOI theory in current study

As a new energy practice, the diffusion of community solar projects can be investigated through this theory. In the previous section, we discussed briefly the four elements that influence the adoption of any innovation and these are: characteristics of the innovation, communication channels, time, and social setting. Moreover, based on Brown’s model, factors like infrastructure provision and pricing affect the objective attributes or the 44 material aspects of the innovation that are vital to its adoption. While, factors like market selection and segmentation and promotional communications affect an adopter’s perceptions about the innovation and consequently, affecting its adoption. In the present study, I will try to examine which of these factors played a role in influencing the development of solar farms in Ohio and how. Moreover, these factors will also aid in understanding the public perceptions regarding these community solar projects.

The successful adoption (or acceptance) of community solar projects by the residents in

Ohio can be determined by the perceived advantages and disadvantages of participating in such a project (Weaver, 2017), and also by the intent to enroll in future similar (renewable energy) initiatives. And this can be assessed by exploring the different attributes of an innovation that drives intent to participate in such initiatives. As stated by Rogers (1995),

“the characteristics of an innovation, as perceived by the members of a social system, determine its rate of adoption” (pp. 36). These attributes include relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, complexity, and observability. So, for individuals to participate in community solar projects, it should be perceived by them as having some relative advantage, be it economic or environmental, over other available energy options and be compatible with their existing beliefs, ideas, and values. Say for instance, an individual values sustainable development and strongly supports the growth and use of cleaner energy fuels, then he/she will likely consider participation in such an initiative, given its environmental benefits, because it will not only be consistent with his/her ideas and beliefs,

45 but allows the individual to also back the same cause. Similarly, characteristics like trialability, observability and complexity of community solar projects will influence an individual’s decision to accept as well as participate in future similar developments. For example, with the establishment of a community solar facility in their town, individuals will not only observe how this technology (~solar) works, understand how it all comes together, or what efforts are required from their side, but even experience for themselves the benefits of such a technology through say, lower electricity bills or bill credits. This experience with the technology will lead to trust in and adoption of similar technological innovations, because “when consumers can observe a technology in use, as well as visibly see the benefits, the likelihood of adoption is enhanced” (Jager, 2006; Weaver, 2017).

Moreover, these individual perceptions regarding the attributes of the innovation are further shaped by a person’s level of innovativeness (innovator or skeptic), his/her surroundings or social system and how the information about that innovation reaches them or is communicated to them (communication channels, source and content of information).

Section 5.4 of chapter 5 discusses this application of DOI theory in present study in more detail.

Chapter 3: Research Methods

3.1 Research objectives

➢ To look at the development of community solar projects in the state of Ohio and try to

comprehend the factors that influence the development of a solar facility in a city, and

➢ To understand public perceptions towards such solar energy projects.

3.2 Research questions

I. Why do certain places/regions develop a solar energy facility? Does a concern for

environment lead to the development of such renewable energy initiatives?

II. What project attributes were considered while making this decision?

III. What was the local community reaction like towards such a project? Was any

opposition faced? Was the community supportive?

3.3 Study sites

For my study, I will focus on understanding the establishment of following three solar projects located within Ohio, one of which is wholly municipally owned, one that is a partnership between a municipal and investor/corporate-owned utility, and one that is an investor/corporate utility owned project, but built on local government property:

Figure 10 Map showing the three study sites within Ohio (Map created using Google Earth)

1. Bowling Green Solar Field: In March 2016, AMP (American Municipal Power)

entered into a joint development agreement with DG AMP Solar, a wholly owned

subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, for the development, construction and

operation of up to 80 megawatts (MW) or more of new solar electric generation

facilities in Ohio, and by January 2017, the first solar installation of the project

went into commercial operation: the 20 MW Bowling Green Solar Facility (AMP,

n.d.). The 165-acre solar field, near the corner of Carter and Newton roads northeast

of the city, has 85,000 solar panels that soak up the sun to generate power. The

panels rotate with the Sun through a tracker (see figures 11 & 12 below), so they

can create more energy. The city, along with other participating communities, is the

primary purchaser of energy produced by this facility from AMP, with the Bowling

Green Municipal Utility purchasing 13.74 megawatts of power (Kuebeck, 2018).

The land for the solar array is owned by the City of Bowling Green. The city has a

population of 30,028 (BG Convention & Visitors Bureau, 2019). It is part of

the Toledo Metropolitan Area and is the county seat for Wood County. It is home

to Bowling Green State University and is famous for the National Tractor Pulling

Championship and the Black Swamp Arts Festival (BG Convention & Visitors

Bureau, 2019). The portion going to Bowling Green will supply 5 percent of the

city’s energy needs: the power generated by these 85,000 panels in the solar field

(when operating at full capacity) can produce enough energy to power 3,000 homes

in Ohio, and this green energy is the equivalent of taking more than 5,000 cars off

the road or 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide out of the air (McLaughlin, 2017).

Figure 11 Solar field at Bowling Green. Photo credit: Ruchie Pathak

Figure 12 Shows the tracker on which the panels rotate with the Sun. Photo credit: Ruchie Pathak

2. Minster Solar Array: A 4.2-MWac solar array combined with a 7-MW/3MWh

lithium-ion energy storage facility is installed, about half a mile from each other, at

a western Ohio village called Minster (Trabish, 2016). The solar farm produces

about 13 percent of the village’s power supply (Hissong, 2019). The project was

made possible by a public-private partnership between the Village of Minster and

Half Moon Ventures (Karash, 2018). The Village of Minster is set in a beautiful

rural Auglaize County, and has a total population of 2,805 with an agricultural and

industrial economic base (Village of Minster, 2019). It is the “home of the world’s

largest yogurt plant, which employs more than 400 people” (Sutherly, 2007).

Minster is home to Nidec Minster that “produces machine presses that stamp

out 95 percent of the pop tops on soda and other beverage cans in the United

States” (Kaufmann, 2018). Apart from that, the village has many parks, an

excellent 18-hole golf course, a 40 mile hiking section of the Miami and Erie Canal

Path, and the F.J. Stallo Memorial Library, which is “quickly gaining a reputation

as an excellent genealogy library” (Village of Minster, 2019), among other

attractions. The system was built by S&C Electric and constitutes the first such

solar + storage system in the US established by a municipal-owned utility (Karash,

2018). Further, the system, designed by S&C engineers, includes “S&C’s

PureWave SMS Storage Management System and an LG Chem lithium-ion (nickel

manganese cobalt chemistry) battery system”, and an interconnect system, which

includes medium-voltage transformers and a switchgear to complement the storage

system (Karash, 2018).

Figure 13 Solar facility at the village of Minster. Photo credit: Ruchie Pathak 53

Figure 14 Battery storage system at Minster. Photo credit: Jeffrey Jacquet

3. Wyandot Solar Facility: The PSEG Wyandot Solar Farm was completed in 2010

and is installed in Wyandot County's Salem Township. Salem Township is one of

the thirteen townships of Wyandot County, Ohio, and as per the 2010 census has a

population of 1,001 (American FactFinder, n.d.). The facility has the nameplate

capacity to generate 10 MW of electricity and can reach up to 12MW when the sun

is shining (SEIA, 2018). The 84-acre solar farm has about 159,200 solar panels and

eight power stations housing transformers and other equipment (Mckinnon, 2010).

The facility is owned by PSEG Solar Source and was developed by juwi solar Inc.

(~JSI) (Solar Daily, 2010) and was constructed on county-owned land adjacent to

the county airport. JSI was basically the engineering, procurement, and 54 construction contractor, while Vaughn Industries, which is based in Wyandot

County, was the primary construction contractor (Solar Daily, 2010). PSEG Solar

Source worked closely with the County’s Economic Development office in order to maximize the local business involvement in this project. And that is why, during the course of construction, approximately 95% of the workforce consisted of workers belonging to the State of Ohio, many of whom gained some valuable and first hands-on experience of helping build a utility-scale solar project (juwi Inc.,

2010; Solar Daily, 2010). “American Electric Power subsidiaries, Columbus

Southern Power and Ohio Power Companies, have a long-term agreement with

PSEG Solar Source to purchase the electricity generated at this farm”, which further connects to the grid at the Upper Sandusky Substation via a four-mile long generator lead (Solar Daily, 2010).

Figure 15 Solar farm at Wyandot County. Photo credit: Ruchie Pathak

The above-mentioned solar projects were selected based on their ownership (municipally and investor/utility-owned), geographic proximity to one another and relative similarity, and capacity to generate electricity.

3.4 Data collection

This exploratory research involved collection of primarily qualitative data, collected through key informant interviews conducted in all the three study sites. A total of 47 individuals were contacted to participate in interviews, with 12 individuals consenting to be subjected to these semi-structured interviews, between September 2019 to December

2019. Key informants included current managers or project heads of municipally owned/utility-owned community solar projects, university extension agents, journalists, elected officials and local government employees (refer to Table 2), who were identified by accessing project and municipal websites and newspaper articles and were invited to participate through emails and phone calls (Burdge and Robertson, 1990). Further, a purposive snowball sampling technique was utilized among key informants whereby the initial pool of participants provided names and contact information for additional interview subjects having knowledge and insights on the creation and development of the project, who were then interviewed for this project as well (Marshall, 1996; Tongco, 2007.) These additional respondents included representatives from area businesses, industry, schools and community groups.

These interviews typically ranged from twenty minutes to one and half hour in length and were mainly conducted face-to-face, except for two that were conducted using telephone to ensure the participants convenience. All the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed and personally identifying information was removed from the transcriptions.

An outline or interview script was used, based upon the prefigured themes revealed in the literatures discussed above, in order to include questions that solicit a broad range of discussion on the development and scope of community solar projects in Ohio. However, the participants were free to deviate from it and the interviewer intervened only to clarify issues or to introduce a new theme. These interviews tried to capture information related to the project design, ownership structure (is it community-owned, municipally or utility- owned), project cost and benefits, presence of barriers (if any) that are hindering public support towards such initiatives. Additional questions even explored public perception of these solar projects, importance of community support and effects of renewable energy policies of the state on such projects.

Apart from the key informants, many other people were approached for participation in the study (see Fig. 16) as well, based on the recommendations put forward by the participants themselves or/and who were identified through information available on public websites, but either the request was denied on the basis of low or no familiarity with the project, or there was no response (at all) received. This included 7 individuals from Wyandot County,

17 from Village of Minster and 11 from city of Bowling Green, who were contacted via

58 email and telephone. Moreover, researchers approached individuals (locals) in public libraries, shops, businesses, and offices to gauge public sentiment and knowledge about these projects, around eight from Bowling Green and seven from Minster, regarding participation in the study, but most people approached were either unfamiliar or just didn’t have any opinion about it (solar energy facility) to warrant a formal interview (more details on these interactions are discussed in Chapter 5:Discussion). Finally, city council meeting minutes and local newspaper articles for all the three sites were also examined to complement the data.

30 28 25

23 20 21

15 15 11

10 8 11 7

5 4 4 4

0 0 Bowling Green Minster Wyandot

No. of people who participated Total no. of people contacted via email/phone No. of people approached in-person Total contacted

Figure 16 Chart shows the total respondents recruited vs. participated by study sites.

Table 2 Solar farms and (recruited) participants in the study.

Solar Farm Case Capacity Break-down of Location and Ownership Study (MW) participants Year

#1 Wyandot Corporate/Municipal 12 Local officials (2),

County university extension N=4 agent and resident/local (2010) community group

member

#2 Bowling Municipal/Corporate 20 Local officials (2),

Green City university extension N=4 agent and college (2017) professor

#3 Minster Municipal 4.2 Local officials (2),

Village resident and local N=4 industry (2016) employee/representative

Chapter 4: Results

4.1 Site 1: Wyandot Solar Facility, Wyandot County, Salem Township, Ohio (#N=4)

Interviews from site 1 reveal that the solar facility in this county was established as a result of the state’s Senate Bill 221, which required utilities at the time to generate about 25% of all energy consumed by residents from advanced energy sources by year 2025; half of this

(or 12.5%) must be generated from renewable energy resources, of which 0.5% must be solar energy (Policy Matters Ohio, 2010; Ohioline, 2010). American Electric Power (AEP), along with the developers and owners of the project: JSI (juwi Solar Inc.) and PSEG Solar

Source respectively, back then (between 2008- early 20091) issued a request for proposals of a viable property where the solar facility could be developed. In response to this request, a proposal was submitted from the Wyandot County Economic Development Group, as a result of which the site was selected. According to one of the respondents (#1), “At the time I think we were a little bit surprised that, you know, we had a developer that had reached out to us and was interested in building a project. We had been following the

Senate Bill 221 and the Renewable Portfolio Standards, but we were really kind of surprised that there were developers interested in Wyandot County.”

1 Since the construction of the facility began towards the end of year 2009, the call for proposals is assumed to be sometime between these years.

For Wyandot to get selected as the possible site for this facility, it had to make sense

‘financially’ to the developers, which was attained mainly through the enterprise zone agreement that took the consent of not only County Commissioners but of few local public leaders of that time as well. As in the words of one of the respondents (#2), “I mean

Wyandot obviously had to make more financial sense than all the other sites that they had that were submitted for the project. So, they got an enterprise zone agreement, which is, abatement of real and personal property taxes, for the project. I think that the Salem township trustees might have signed off on to the local school districts, to make that happen. So, there was local support in that, you know.”

The Ohio Enterprise Zone Program “provides real and personal property tax exemptions to businesses making investments in Ohio” (Ohio Development Services Agency, n.d.), when the investment is in combination with a project that encourages economic development and job creation (Ohio Development Services Agency, n.d.; Hayes, 2019).

So, for making this solar energy project work here, this agreement had to be put in place with the County for leasing of their property. This was accomplished through few public hearings, where the approval of local leaders, including County Commissioners, township trustees and local (city) schools was obtained. According to interviewee (#2), “There was some public outreach, but for the most part, you know, it was a project on County ground…County Commissioners, obviously were the ultimate decision-makers.”

In words of another respondent (#1): “There was local support shown in that, you know, they were going to say, well, it was 100% of taxes for 15 years, to make it financially feasible for them to do the project here. So, we’re still in that first 15-year window, which is the max they could do under enterprise, I’m sure. So, essentially, they’re not paying, I can’t remember what exactly the tax is called, but it’s a, some kind of generation like utility generation, property tax that, that juwi doesn’t have to pay because the locals were willing to, to abate that.”

Apart from financial reasons, other factors that were considered whilst choosing this site included rate to lease the acreage and the distance to nearest AEP sub-station. As stated by two of the respondents (#1, #2), “The developers were working with utilities and were interested in specific interconnection points and we happened to have one of those interconnection points.”, and “I would think like proximity and how much I build out with cost was another big, big thing.”

The respondent (#1) further added: “And also, I’m pretty sure all of the energy is used locally. So, like what was the demand that AEP had an area for energy, and could it all be used? My understanding is that if you have utility scale generation, and if all that energy is not used locally, you have to pipe it back on to, the larger transmission grid, which is

63 just not as cost effective for the utility, So, if you can produce the energy and use it all in the same area, then it makes a lot a lot more sense.”

The respondents (#1 and #2) agreed on the community being rather supportive of the solar project, with one respondent stating, “I mean I would say the overall acceptance of the community was, I would rate it as very high. You know, I can’t really recall any opposition to the project, thinking back again.” There has hardly been any dissent expressed from the community over the years, as other respondent assured that “it’s been smooth sailing.” In addition, their (#1 and #2) following responses indicated that maybe people have just been indifferent towards the project altogether instead of opposing it, as its hardly visible compared to other energy facilities:

“It just, I mean it just kinda sits there and generates power.”

“I haven’t really heard any saying, you know, there’s been wind development in our area, and you’ll hear more about that. Like, cause it’s very visible. Whereas, the solar farm, you have to be, almost right up adjacent to it before you can really see it, especially around here. Like, because it’s so flat and everything else. I mean, you don’t really notice it unless you’re driving right past it.”

Overall, the responses from all the interviewees indicated that the public perception of this project has always been positive. One respondent even relayed an anecdote that suggested towards the project giving people a shared sense of identity, with people taking pride in having such a solar project in their area. The respondent (#4) articulated this by stating: “I think people are probably proud that it’s there, you know, like, hey you know, this is a small rural community, but we’ve got, you know a large solar, sustainable, renewable, uh, our generation capacity.” Another respondent (#3) recalled: “And I was very impressed with how forward looking the majority of the community members were. Cause I honestly expected a battle…People have been very supportive. I don’t know how, the attitudes of the whole group in general are positive and forward looking and they have not argued.”

In general, from the viewpoint of the respondents, the project has been beneficial for the community and not just from an environmental perspective, but in a variety of other ways as well: from having a reliable source of energy, procuring significantly high lease rates of the site/land, to recruiting a local company for the construction of the project and thus, developing skills and creating jobs. According to one respondent (#1), “The company that actually got the contract to do the construction was a local electrical and mechanical high voltage contractor. That was their first utility scale solar farm that they had. And since that time, they’ve done utility scale solar projects all over the country. It’s a local company.

They’ve got employees, local employees that they send all over. And they picked up tons of

65 business of the work they did on the initial one. So, it did, it did help to support that, you, know, local company that we have.”

Many newspaper articles of that time also acknowledged this facility “as a boon to an area where most people are farmers or dependent on farming” (Funk, 2010). According to one article, “Ohio residents filled nearly all of the construction jobs created by the project: First

Solar, which has a major manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, OH, supplied the solar panels.

Myers Controlled Power of North Canton, OH, provided the power stations” (Solar Daily,

2010).

Moreover, the project may have also been successful in encouraging individuals to install their own systems as well. This was indicated from one respondent’s (#2) retort: “It seems like since that went in, now, whether it’s because of this project and having some sense of security that the technology works or whether it’s more driven by cost, we have a lot of individual farms, homes, businesses that have installed systems.” In addition, this solar facility might have also paved the road for other nearby small villages in the county itself to install such a system. One of the examples being the Village of Carey, which too has a small-scale (2 MW) solar facility (investor-owned) in their village, which was built by the same company who worked on the Wyandot solar facility (Vaughn Industries, 2018). One can’t say for sure that this project led to the development of solar farm in Carey, but one of the resident of that village did seem to agree with this and said, “Carey owns its own 66 power utility company, so I know they’re always interested in, you know, purchasing electricity at lowest cost. And I think they also have an interest in working sustainably. So,

I think it was the village administration guys and probably some of the other electric guys as well as Vaughn that went Hey, you know, we’ve got the opportunity to take this on. They saw Wyandot solar go in, and they had the space for it. And, I think those factors kind of led to, to that happening.”

Furthermore, the project serves educational purposes as well. One respondent said that the facility being the largest of its time, attracted a lot of visitors every year. The developers initially even installed small solar arrays at each of the three school districts at no cost, which allowed the schools to do educational programs around it as well. According to the respondent (#3), “It’s a nice visual example. It’s easily accessible to people that are interested in and don’t know what’s involved.” Likewise, this project also allows the

County to not only promote itself but can help pave the road for a future community solar project as well. In the words of the respondent (#1), “When I’m talking to potential industry, it’s something we can promote. It’s kind of like a selling tool other than something to just enforce reliability in the local grid…I feel like having our current solar farm, is a good example of, Hey, you know, it’s not like it’s that intrusive and it’s always out there generating energy. So, it would probably help sell a future community solar project. Yeah.”

4.2 Site 2: Bowling Green Solar Field, Wood County, Ohio (#N=4)

The development of solar field at this site was a result of a proposal put forward by the

American Municipal Power, Inc. (AMP), “a non-profit wholesale power supplier and service provider” (AMP, n.d.) association, of which the city of Bowling Green, being a municipal electric system/utility, is part of. It all started back around year 2007, when the city decided to change their power supply a bit; they decided to own more generation and get off the market as the market was very unstable at that time due to increased prices. And later with AMP pitching in their proposal for a renewable energy source for the community, things just started to fall in place.

In the words of one of the respondents (#5), “In 2007, that’s when Bowling Green decided we’re gonna own more generation, get off, get off the market because the market prices were very volatile at the time. And we bought some of the prairie state coal plant out in

Illinois. But we also bought, hydropower off the Ohio river. And the four wind turbines are here in town. We own 50% of that energy. We buy 50% of that energy. And then the solar project is also tied to our system. So, we’re buying a piece and part of all that is being delivered to our city, with the help of AMP scheduling that for us.”

Of course, the proposal still had to be approved by the city’s Board of Public Utilities and by the City Council. But “it was an easy yes” according to another respondent (#7). The

68 respondent articulated this by saying: “It was AMP: American Municipal Power that presented this idea to us. They, they proposed it to a number of cities, and I think we had a history of being interested in this. So, when it came to [elected official] and others, they were immediately interested in it. And so, they discussed it. It was discussed in the board of public utilities and then came to city council and it was, it was an easy yes for all of us.”

However, the decision-making process was not that simple and straightforward as it sounds. The detailed description of the procedure provided by one of the respondents highlights not only the factors that were considered while deciding on this project, but also, sheds light on the role played by various actors involved in this process. For instance, initially whilst planning this project, the cost for the customers was coming out to be a little towards the higher end since AMP being a non-profit agency was not eligible for tax credits for building solar. However, the city was still very much interested to go ahead with it, as indicated by the respondent (#5), “That was going to cause about a, a 1% rate increase to my customers…because they (AMP) couldn’t get the tax benefit. But given, that we knew that solar for us was important to our customers, it was important to our city council, important to our board of public utilities, they wanted to see something done. And so, we said, well, if it’s a 1% cost increase to our customers, that would be for a period of time.

And then when the debt was paid off that price would drop, right! And the price would be lower, so, we were willing to take that additional cost.” But because AMP was able to work out an arrangement with a private developer: NextEra Energy Resources, who not

69 only constructed, but own the project as well, they were in the end able to take the tax credit and offer a slightly lower price for the energy as compared to what was available in the market (at that time). The respondent elucidated this decision: “You know if markets now are at an all time low, the potential for the market prices to go even lower is relatively small. And if it does go lower, it’s not going to be by an exaggerated amount and be very, very small amount that did adjust. So, if I’m paying a little bit higher than the market that’s not the end of the world, right….and we all know that market prices tend to go up and down over time. And so if market prices go up and I’m still paying, you know, my fixed price solar contract, that’s good for my customers long-term. So, from an economic perspective, it really didn’t have anybody that was complaining about the price.”

A third-party consultant also analyzed the proposed project, before it was presented to the board of public utilities and city council, in order to get a more detailed feedback on the benefits and risks (if any) involved with the project. Once decided that the project makes sense, it is presented to the city’s local board of public utilities, which comprises of five people who all are residents of the city and belong to a variety of backgrounds. After their approval, the proposal is then put forward in the city council and its only after their authorization that the project is open for public vote. If the ordinance does not get challenged within 30 days, it gets approved and the developers go ahead with their plans.

Although this project did get a green light, there was however, some amount of opposition received initially from the public, especially farmers, who expressed concerns about using

70 a ‘farmland’ for this project. One respondent (#5) stated, “From an economic perspective, it really didn’t have anybody that was complaining about the price, what, what people complained about was mostly that the city owned a 300-acre farm ground. And of that 300 acres we had proposed to take 165 acres and convert it to solar. And so there’s a lot of farming community in this area and they were really, a few were upset that we were taking away farm ground to put it into solar production.” Another respondent (#7) too mentioned,

“As far as I know, complete support. Okay, I heard a few farmers complain about taking crop land out of production and that’s just their focus.”

This information was also presented in the city council’s minutes of the meeting document; the city council voted in agreement “authorizing the utilities director to execute an agreement with American Municipal Power, Inc. and NextEra to subscribe for 13.74 MW in the AMP Solar Project Phase II” and “to negotiate a site lease for land owned by the

Municipality and an Interconnection Agreement with AMP or NextEra for the project’s solar electric generation systems that will be located on property owned by the

Municipality and interconnected to the Municipality’s electric distribution system” (The

City of Bowling Green Ohio, 2016). This ordinance was passed by the council on May 2,

2016 (The City of Bowling Green Ohio, 2016). Moreover, in the minutes of the meeting document, a concern expressed by one of the locals regarding the loss of “quality farmland with the installation of the solar project”, under the heading ‘Lobby Visitations’ was also highlighted (The City of Bowling Green Ohio, 2016). According to the information

71 presented in the document, the resident was not against solar energy, but was wondering whether another location would be better for its establishment. And in response to her concern, the utility’s director explained that “other sites were considered, but this site is large enough to accommodate the project thereby helping to drive the costs down of the overall project” (The City of Bowling Green Ohio, 2016).

Along similar lines, when asked to articulate ‘first reaction’ towards this project, one respondent (#6) asserted, “Solar fields should be located on land that is not productive, like on rooftops, parking lots, brownfield areas that cannot be restored. Why do we have to sacrifice prime farmland for a renewable energy project?” The respondent further added: “We have to look at the entire aspect of the solar shields life; How much of it is renewable? How much was not renewable? What kind of rare metals are we using in these panels? What is the life expectancy and what is the environmental cost of disposal at the end of its life expectancy? So, there’s costs that people are not addressing as you look at, you know, the cheap initial or the current costs. There are other costs we’re not looking at.”

Further, there were concerns put forward from few of the neighbors in the area, regarding the location of the panels as well. According to the respondent (#5), “The original plan was to build it right against the edge of the road and use the first 165 acres of the property

72 to put the solar on. We had some complaints from a few of the neighbors in the area that they did not want to see a solar field every day when they come on the drive by.” And as a result of this, the solar field was moved inside, towards the middle of the property. Few other concerns related to the project included potential noise concerns from the ‘trackers’ used for rotating the panels, and more general ones such as building the project in the city itself rather than in the outskirts (~township), as revealed by the respondent. Moreover, the respondent recalled the following comment: “I had one person complain that they thought that the solar project would not last longer than five years and that it would be basically destroyed in a scrap heap because it was outside and they didn’t see any little way that this thing could function outside in that environment, you know, 24 hours a day, and lasts for

25 years.”

In addition, when trying to recruit participants for this study from this site, around 8 (local) people were approached; out of them, five were familiar with this project, but mostly cited an indifference towards it, that is, they had nothing to say about the project, except one who too expressed concerns with the “use of productive land rather than using brownfields for the project.”

Nevertheless, all the respondents agreed on the project being readily welcomed by the residents. One of the respondents (#7) said, “We’re a university town. It’s the most liberal

73 town in our County. Certainly, a lot of university people are always pushing us to consider environmental impacts. And I think also people not associated with the university are just generally interested in renewables. So, there just really wasn’t much opposition.” Another respondent (#6) said, “People in the city of Bowling Green that lives in town, you know, do not have an understanding of this and they’re all in favor of course. You know, this is usually a good idea. So, it depends on your relationship to agriculture and the land…. I mean it doesn’t bother anybody. It doesn’t cause emissions or noise or any other pollution.

It’s set back away from highways, so, most people don’t even see it. They should know where to look. So, it hasn’t bothered anybody, you know.”

Another respondent added that it was the presence of existing renewable energy projects like the wind turbines that made it easier for the community to accept solar. The respondent

(#5) stated: “Just given our history and who we are and what we do, that’s why you know solar was a natural fit here…. Every customer in town is buying, 40% of their energy basically is coming from a renewable resource at this time. So, I would say that Bowling

Green has a strong interest in renewable energy… And I think having the university here, you know, half of our population is basically students. And the younger generation just has a big interest in these things. I think they want to see us being responsible. They want to see us doing what we can to try to reduce our carbon emissions.” Another respondent (#8) expressed, “When you show them new opportunities to support the community, they tend to be receptive…. When you get around to being able to show that there is a public

74 advantage or an economic advantage, we sell a lot of things.” The respondent further recalled an anecdote to illustrate the need of educating the community about such projects to encourage support for the same, and it goes like: “When the first two turbines in the state were opened with a ceremony, 400 people were out there on a November day and it was not warm. Everybody was in a winter coat. And it’s six miles out of town and the wind was blowing. And you could see those turbines turning. Although you had to explain to people that there were gears involved so that after they got to a certain speed, they always went to the same speed. Right, so, they didn’t look like they were responding to the wind. The response was all in the gears and in the electricity that was produced, therefore, and, that’s part of education that you have to do… I mean they say whatever and they don’t know, because they don’t understand the physics. But that’s beside the point. The point is, Hey, it works and it’s great, right? That’s the point, isn’t it? Yes, for public acceptance point of view, yeah!”

There are also plans to do another solar project, specifically a community solar project, as about “a dozen people” from the community have come forward and shown interest in it, as mentioned by one of the interviewee (#5). The city is also working on adding a battery storage power plant to store the energy being produced from the solar farm. One respondent

(#7) mentioned, “People are aware that our carbon footprint has been lowered by having this project. And I think a lot of people really value and appreciate that. So, it’s not that the benefit is to our particular microclimate here, but for the planet as a whole and people

75 are happy to be involved with that. We have also been looking at another possible site for perhaps a similar sized project on some land owned by the County. We could maybe lease it from them and build a whole another solar field, we’ll see about that.” Another one (#5) said: “We’ve had some, a couple people obviously are very, very interested in that topic.

So, I think probably like a dozen people have said that they were interested in that, we probably would get more if they actually did a project and we really had a price that we could propose and say, well here’s what your upfront costs will be. And we’ve also had people that are interested in rooftop solar on their own properties.”

On recalling the benefits this project has brought to the city and for the community, one respondent (#5) stated, “It’s brought some notoriety to Bowling Green, I would say. You know, we get a lot of interests from the solar project. There are a lot of interests from the outside people coming in. The wind farm out here, the landfill that kind of did the same thing back in. We are known for the first utility scale wind farm in Ohio. This project is the largest solar field in the state of Ohio. It won’t be the largest for long, but for now, you know, we can say we have the biggest solar field. So, we’ve gotten some awards from national agencies about our solar project.” The project has allowed the respondents to develop a strong sense of identity around it and this is indicated from this respondent’s (#6) following comment: “I think it sets us apart as a more progressive community that some people may like to locate in a community like this where they’re looking at alternative energy sources and you know, trying to do better for the environment and look at trying to

76 lower energy costs in the future to attract certain people. I’m not an expert but I think we are noted that we are one of the leaders for our size community, you know, seeking alternative energies that way.”

4.3 Site 3: Minster Solar Array, Minster, Auglaize County, Ohio (#N=4)

Interviews from this site reveal that the solar array was developed as a result of the village municipality planning to expand their “electrical portfolio.” According to one of the respondents (#10), “The idea of us having some of our electrical supply from a renewable source such as solar, it was very exciting for me…And, prior to solar we looked at the option for wind power.” But the wind option fell off as some of the “incentives and subsidies for wind power went away” once the economy improved, recalls the respondent.

However, the interest in renewable energy still stayed strong and the village looked for more options. The interest was bolstered as a developer approached the village with this solar project idea and talked about the investment that was required and what would be expected from the village. The respondent (#10) recalled the conversation and mentioned,

“We were fortunate that maybe 10 years prior we purchased a large farm on the western side of the community with hopes of having some industrial development or some water treatment or fresh water supply, so, we had all these empty acres. And when [developer] said we need, you know, 15 acres or 18 acres of open property and that’s all we would ask from the village and we’ll pay for the rest. We’ll pay for the solar panels. And we’ll help with the circuits and the inverters and so on. My first reaction, well, what’s the catch? Why

77 would they do this? Because he could go anywhere and do this. But probably he says, not everybody is open to that idea. So, we considered.”

The village council’s meeting minutes also confirmed this information. The minutes of the meeting document dated December 16, 2014, highlights the conversation between the project developer and the Village Council on the installation of the battery storage system along with the solar array. The idea for the storage system was pitched in by the developer as a way “to recoup monies from renewable energy” (Village of Minster, 2014). The passing of Senate Bill 310 at that time reduced the benefits and price of renewable energy credits, from $150 and to approximately $30 (Village of Minster, 2014). With these credits values being so low, the project investors were considering other ways to “recoup monies from renewable energy” and one way to do so was to invest in frequency regulation, which is “done through the installation of large battery units that put voltage onto the electrical system when needed” (Village of Minster, 2014). However, initially the council expressed

“possible environmental and noise concerns” from these storage systems. But after visiting a similar system in Dayton, the council agreed on the proposal for a solar project and energy storage system, and the motion was passed with “six aye votes” on January 06, 2015 in the council (Village of Minster, 2015).

According to another respondent (#11), “Our village council decided that we wanted to expand our electrical portfolio. So, we buy power from other sources and what they wanted to do was put, you know, to look at putting in solar field that was tied to our own electrical system. So, that’s how we got started on the project. And we, we worked with an investor who invested the money in the project and built the project, and then we had a power purchase agreement with the investor to buy that power from the solar field and then turn it around and sell it back to our customers as part of our village electric system.” One of the other respondent (#10) explained the reason for going ahead with this project, and said that they compared the cost of solar with the other electricity costs that they were purchasing and it came out to a “little above medium, but it was low costs for solar.” The respondent revealed, “Typically solar power’s gonna cost a lot more. So, we were fortunate to have it in a good band cost for us and we thought, well, with a 20-year agreement we avoid the distribution costs because the power is already here. We don’t have to pay [a power company] or one of those companies to bring the power to us. We save that as well as the benefits of peak shaving on a hot day like today, when it’s going to be 92 or 93, everybody’s air conditioners are flying around and there are some peak loads there that can set new thresholds for costs for the additional power that maybe you didn’t plan for.

So, it helps us in that way too. I was really concerned at first, excited at the same time; concerned that there has to be a catch, what’s the downside? And really hasn’t been a downside. Everything has gone very well.”

The respondents believe that the village is really pleased that they went ahead with their decision of not only installing a solar array but a storage facility as well, because the facility has helped them attract a lot of businesses, as suggested by this respondent’s (#11) comment: “Being able to provide resources to the public that they, they want or require in green energy is something that is becoming more and more popular. And we, we’ve got a lot of businesses in town that all like, like [an international company] that have green, green energy goals. So, for us as a utility to be able to try to help them meet that I think is a great way for us to continue to serve those customers.” The respondent further added, “I think by having solar, it increases our reliability of our electrical system that we can then turn around and utilize that as an economic development tool for businesses that may come here and say, look we’ve got this here. We can show you where our costs are saving. We can show you we’ve got increased reliability because we have our own resources that may help them make a decision about whether or not they want to locate their business here in town. We got a lot of positive feedback from our businesses. [An international company] has plants here in Minster and they were very supportive of us going with green energy because that helped them meet their corporate goals.”

When interviewed an employee of [international company] here at Minster, the respondent

(#9) explained the company’s commitment towards reducing their carbon emissions and their vision of reduction in their energy consumptions, “even down to the site level”, and how this was made achievable by this project. Moreover, the representative even clarified

80 the company’s decision of signing a power purchase agreement with the village, instead of building their own solar facility, as a “balance of short term and long term.” That is, generally solar is presented as a 15-20-years investment, while investments in food companies are mostly somewhere in between three to five years. And because a lot of factors have to be considered, including “efficiency per square foot of land ownership and whether it’s on land or on top of the building structure, then the complexity of building structure itself, is it calculated for the load of solar panels and then the ownership and maintenance”, and also price of the energy, due to which these agreements take a while to implement and as a result get “dis-lined from each other.” But what worked here in the village, according to the respondent was: “that distribution center had a longer build timeline and the development process in front of the build itself allowed to do the power purchase agreement with a, because that was in collaboration with the village… But what’s really important is to start as far upstream in the process as possible to envision what a power distribution network looks like and what are the current agreements that are in place…so that that relationship and understanding of the timing and cost.” The respondent

(#9) also emphasized the vital role played by battery storage, and stated, “A secondary benefit is there’s power storage. So, batteries sort of allows some backup and curtailment security, power security and power conditioning, so basically there’s less fluctuation.”

Moreover, the solar + storage system is also serving an educational purpose as it is helping the students and future residents understand solar, and has thus, become the ‘selling point

81 of the village’. This was indicated by one respondent’s (#10) retort, “I think there’s a little envy on the other communities like, “Oh wow, they really got something fantastic going on in Minster. …. We feel that we’re in a strong position when you compare our community with the larger communities like Marysville and Lima and Springfield and so on. We’re light years ahead of where they are with renewable energy. So, we feel we’re in a very comfortable position in taking a leadership position with renewables.”

There is a sense of identity around the solar field, which was suggested from the following two responses (#12 and #10):

In the words of one local resident: “I’m glad that they (village) have it (solar facility) and

I, in fact, I wish more communities would do it because we need to look for alternative simple fuel support.”

“I think there’s that local sense of pride that causes people to have that interest (in renewables). So, they have their pride that, you know, we have a beautiful church here and we have our own power company. We have our own solar company. We have a largest yogurt facility in the US here, even though they don’t work there, even though there’s no money for them. And yet they’re very proud that it’s here and that an [international] company would come here and have such a large facility… And it was really incredible

82 how much excitement there was nationally that this smaller community was putting in so much solar with the battery backups and all that. It was just fantastic.”

However, call it being apathetic or just uninformed, when trying to recruit potential interviewees for this study site, out of the 7 locals that were approached only 3 were found to have some level of familiarity with this solar facility. Moreover, there have been some concerns expressed by the community as well regarding this project. And mostly these revolved around the utilization of farmland for installing solar panels and how this project will work and help in saving money. On this one respondent (#11) said, “When we put the solar panels out, there was a few people that expressed some, I don’t want to call it resentment but, but they were not happy that where we put them was no longer going to be a cornfield. But the biggest concern was how is this gonna save us money and how it’s gonna work?”

There were also few people who had issues with just the appearance of these panels and found them aesthetically unpleasing. This was revealed by another respondent (#10),

“What’s this gonna look like? You know, everybody is so proud of their property. You drive through town everybody’s grass is mowed very nicely. The properties are clean and so, what’s the strange solar thing that we’re not used to seeing and how will it impact our community and what’s it going to look like? We had the opportunity to look at other places

83 that have solar and found out it wasn’t so awful, but I’m sure there’s still people in town that think it looks terrible. But, if you talked to a local person about wind turbines, you’ll get the same opinion: we don’t want this crazy looking wind towers in our areas. So, there’s that nervousness.” Another respondent (#11) said that ideas such as “putting some trees up, that could shield the solar panels” or installing the solar panels closer to the ground instead of stacking so high, were discussed with the community to get them on board. The respondent further added: “Once we were able to show them that there were savings that we were going to see from transmission savings, capacity savings, and being able to utilize the solar for peak shaving of our electrical demand and how we pass that back to those customers through their power bills, I think everybody started to get an understanding of how it works and were very supportive on it.”

In fact, two of the respondents mentioned that the village has further plans for installing the current project: this involves installing another 4.2 MW solar facility by the end of

2020, and a community owned solar project, which will form the third phase of this project, in another few years. One respondent (#11) said, “Because of phase one because we’ve seen many benefits and were able to save our transaction and capacity costs, our council has agreed for another phase, phase two of solar, which would be another 4.2 MW. So, we’ll have a total of eight and a half megawatts of solar.” Another respondent (#10) too expressed excitement over the expansion of the project and stated, “We’re excited about

84 doubling the size. We’re excited about the next step after that, having our own micro grid at some point. So, we’re not ready to stop. We want to keep going.”

According to the council’s meeting minutes, the motion for the establishment of another

4.0 MW solar array and 7.5 MW storage system (phase 2), which would be located behind the meter, and a 19.9 MW energy storage system (phase 3), which would be in front of the meter, by the same developers, was passed with “six aye votes” on December 20, 2016 by the council (Village of Minster, 2016). The ordinance “authorizes a lease agreement with the developers to lease approximately 3 to 4 acres of ground at the compost facility to build a battery energy storage system” (Village of Minster, 2016).

Further, the meeting minutes, dated May 17, 2016, also mentioned the assistance offered by Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) for the development of a community owned solar program (Village of Minster, 2016). In fact, SEPA, through a grant from Department of Energy, even conducted customer surveys in order to determine interest in such a program and found “overwhelming interest in the general concept of community solar”

(SEPA, 2018, pp. 9). However, “20 percent or more of those surveyed said they needed more information or did not understand how the program would work” (SEPA, 2018, pp.

9). Elaborating on the same and explaining why the village is still deciding on implementing community solar, one respondent (#11) revealed, “We’ve talked about this.

One of the things that is, is really we don’t have a lot of residents that have approached.

Some have approached us about putting solar panels on their house or in their yards. But what we thought about doing was doing a community solar program because we have enough room out there where we’re putting our solar panels and now we could do a community solar where we put a megawatt or you know, half a megawatt of solar and then work with residents who are interested in getting more benefit of the solar… So, once we get to the second phase kicked off, that’s really gonna be our focus.” To the same question, another respondent (#10) said, “By the way, solar panels are cheaper now three years later. So, the cost per megawatt went from 7 cents to 5 cents, which is the better deal. So,

I think yeah, as the production of solar power gets cheaper, more and more people would do it. But right now, it doesn’t seem like as attractive enough for them to do it. I think they’re happy that the village is on it.”

Chapter 5: Discussion

5.1 Development of community solar

The findings of this study confirm that the establishment of a community solar project within a town or a city often occurs as a result of some policy, legislation or program, ratified either at federal or state level (or both), which either makes it absolutely mandatory for electric utilities to switch to more such clean and green alternative energy sources, or makes the transition (to clean energy systems) favorable for the utilities and developers by offering certain ‘incentives’ that can contribute towards the reduction of system costs (Hall,

Bachelor & Romich, 2019). Since the residential electricity sector contributes immensely towards these greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially in the U.S. (Bin and

Dowlatabadi, 2005; EIA, 2019), many countries have now adopted such strategies and have set aggressive targets for encouraging energy transitions to cleaner alternatives.

As seen in the findings , the solar facility in Wyandot, developed as a result of an electrical utility, like AEP (American Electric Power) searching for a viable site to build a solar project, in order to not only comply with the renewable portfolio standards of the state, but also, to switch to and deploy a renewable energy source like solar for production of electricity, so as to lower the dependency on fossil fuels and diversify their power supply

87 portfolios (AEP, 2020). The facility at Bowling Green, on the other hand, came together as a result of an arrangement between AMP (American Municipal Power, Inc.) and DG AMP

Solar, “a wholly owned subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources” (American Municipal

Power, Inc., n.d.), who were able to receive tax exemptions, because of the state’s

‘Alternative Energy Zone legislation’ that was passed in 2010 in Senate Bill 232 (Hall,

Bachelor and Romich, 2019), and thus, offered the city a lower price for the energy as compared to what was available in the market (at that time). According to this law, counties are allowed “to establish an Alternative Energy Zone and exempt qualified energy projects in the zone from paying the public utility tangible personal property tax and real property taxes” (Hall, Bachelor and Romich, 2019; pp. 6-7). These taxes are then substituted “by a standardized payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program which establishes a set annual fee based on the facilities' total nameplate capacity” (Hall, Bachelor and Romich, 2019, pp. 7).

As a result of this law, the company – DG AMP Solar, under state guidelines is required to pay a set annual fee to the County, which is “divided between all taxing districts, such as

Center Township, Bowling Green Schools and countywide levies such as those for developmental disabilities and the park district” (Aspacher, 2016).

In contrast, the facility at Minster was borne as a result of the village itself seeking to expand its electrical portfolio and increase the reliability of its electric system, in order to prevent cost outages for its customers, especially for those who might want to locate their businesses in their town. Minster, as a municipal utility is not subjected to any of the

88 renewable standards set by the state (Kaufmann, 2016). Therefore, the village started reaching out to prospective investors and developers for the same out of their own interests of meeting their long-term goal of creating a micro-grid and becoming completely self- sufficient. Although, initially the village only had plans for a solar field. But because of the freezing of the renewable portfolio standards and solar renewable energy credits (SREC) for two years, due to passage of Senate Bill 310 back in June 2014, (Hall, Bachelor and

Romich, 2019, pp. 6), the investors and developer of the project pitched in the proposal for a battery storage system as well to regain the “monies from renewable energy” (Village of

Minster, 2014).

But one thing that stays pertinent in the case of all the three study sites is, that the establishment of the solar facility had to make sense not just environmentally, but economically as well, and for both the developers and the participating communities.

According to Hall, Bachelor & Romich (2019), solar energy developers consider three important factors, which are: “the potential amount of sun a site might receive, a property’s proximity to transmission infrastructure, and physical qualities of the property” (pp. 4). All the three sites have solar potential but the developers, in order to prevent additional grid infrastructure related costs, seek sites with not only low interconnection costs, but that also

“provide flat ground with slopes less than three percent, have minimal zoning, environmental, or permitting issues, do not have shading obstructions, and possess good drainage characteristics” (Hall, Bachelor & Romich, 2019, pp. 5). So, reflecting from the

89 perspective of a developer, these sites were appropriate since the facilities were to be built on a county-owned or village-owned land, and consequently, neither will there be any additional costs involved related to procurement of a land, nor any conflicts of interests related to property leasing or ownership will take place. Moreover, the sites being in close proximity of the interconnection grids and sub-stations perfectly made the case for the development of these solar projects.

From the participating community’s standpoint, the project made a lot of sense financially because of factors like increased tax revenues for local schools and increased lease payments for the acreage, as discussed in the previous section by the respondents in case of all three sites. In words of one respondent (#1), the facility makes sense because it generates both energy and income for the town, without having the “community spent any money” on it. Haggett and Aitken (2015) and Jacquet and Fergen (2018) in their papers on such community renewable energy initiatives too highlight their benefits for the community, including local revenue generation, which has been demonstrated in these findings as well.

5.2 Community impacts

Now that these facilities have been operational for a while, there have been cost savings, in terms of lower electricity bills for the customers. There have not been any additional

90 charges incurred by the customers; in fact with solar it has been ‘a little cheaper’ as it ‘saves money’ on transmission and provides peak shaving benefits, as revealed by several respondents (#3, #4, #7, #10 and #11). This holds trues specially in case of Minster, as the village, in 2019, “saw the lowest wholesale power supply costs since 2016” (Village of

Minster, 2020). The town’s blog has an article highlighting this and even attributes this reduction in wholesale power rates to the solar field (Village of Minster, 2020).

And even though the rates have not been that significantly lowered in case of Bowling

Green and Wyandot, they are still ‘extremely competitive’ as compared to the other utilities in the area because of more renewable energy in their portfolios. And people did not seem to have any concerns either, as they did not put forward any complaints regarding the prices, as declared by the respondents, with one respondent (#1) asserting, “it doesn’t affect your bill.”

Further, according to the respondents and even the newspaper articles, the development of solar triggered local economic development by encouraging employment and providing benefits to local businesses, at least in some if not all the cases. Take for instance the case of Wyandot: during the construction of the solar field, majority of the labor involved was local, that is, from within the state. Moreover, the company that got the contract to do the construction was also local. And since then, the company has been involved with utility-

91 scale solar projects all over the country and in the words of one respondent (#1), they have

“picked up tons of business because of the work that they did on the initial one.” Even for the village of Minster, the solar field serves as an economic development tool from time to time, in order to attract new businesses/industries. The increased reliability of the electrical system along with “power backup and curtailment security” due to solar and battery storage, as specified by one of the respondents (#9), helps to attract employers who will locate businesses in their town. The town that is already home to a range of industries, from international to national industries like Nidec, which “produces machine presses that stamp out 95 percent of the pop tops on soda and other beverage cans in the United

States is utilizing a savvy approach to business development through this solar project”

(Kaufmann, 2018).

In case of Bowling Green, the County and especially the County Commissioners, tried to get the project developers to use First Solar Inc. solar panels, a Wood County based

American solar panel manufacturing company, for the solar facility and also, made sure that about 80% of the workforce on the site was from the state, or as put by the respondent (#5) “an Ohio domiciled employee or staff person.” Although, First Solar could not be involved in the project, however, the developers made sure of including them in one of their other projects called the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, which is a

550 MW solar project that “serves the needs of about 160,000 average California homes” (First Solar, 2019). The farm is co-owned by NextEra Energy Resources, GE

Energy Financial Services, and Sumitomo Corporation of America, and is located about six miles north of the community of Desert Center (First Solar, 2019).

In addition, the solar fields in all three cases have also functioned as an ‘educational tool’ for people of all ages to visit and see for themselves how the panels look like and further understand how the system works. In fact, the city of Bowling Green and Minster village organize numerous tours of the respective facilities, with the intention of imparting the knowledge about the facility, “the technology that goes into it and it’s unmanned site” (#5) and how it all works together (#11). And fostering this understanding of the technology is imperative for encouraging both future adoption and successful implementation of such renewable initiatives. According to Rogers et al. (2008), an increase in individual’s understanding of sustainable energy will aid in influencing acceptance of other renewable energy developments as well.

Furthermore, the solar fields have also appeared to give these three communities a shared sense of identity, from the point of view of respondents, with many of them suggesting that the solar fields have given them a “better position on the global stage” (#10) and has brought them a lot of awards and appreciation as the “first largest solar project in the state”

(#1), “the largest solar field in the state of Ohio at present” (#5), or as the “first community in the U.S. to have so much solar power and battery storage per capita than anywhere else”

(#10). Hence, there is a sense of pride in the community, especially evident in the case of

Minster, with their village website proudly displaying the acknowledgement the solar facility has received, with their project winning “Renewable Energy World’s Renewable

Energy Project of the Year” back in year 2017 (Village of Minster Ohio, 2017).

5.3 Public reactions

The majority of the respondents, in all the three cases, agreed on the solar fields receiving an overall positive feedback from the community. And this positive support for solar is associated with both environmental and economic factors. In case of Wyandot solar facility, all the respondents mentioned complete community support towards the project.

And this support can be explained from an economic perspective. As already discussed above, the development of solar at Wyandot facilitated several local job creations and inclusion of local companies, thus, resulting in its social acceptance. While it is important to value renewable energy for its benefits to the environment, nonetheless, economic factors associated with renewable energy projects, such as income generation and local employment opportunities, are the main drivers in shaping support and its social acceptance. This is similar to the findings of Carlisle et al. (2015), Thomas et al. (2018),

Jacquet and Fergen (2018) and Ferguson et al.’s (2019) research, which also highlighted the important role played by economic benefits, like employment opportunities, in encouraging community acceptance of such alternative energy projects.

In case of other two sites, people expressed their support towards the project due to its various benefits for the environment, and conveyed the same in terms of “being responsible citizens”, “going green”, “safe and non-polluting”, doing something “better for the environment”, and reducing the “carbon footprint”, as recalled by many respondents (#1,

#3, #4, #7, #10, #12). Although, some negative sentiments from a small group of people were also recalled by the interviewees, especially regarding the use of farmland. Research in other areas has shown that the establishment of the solar facility often conflicts with the ideas and values of a traditional “productivist” farmer: someone who believes in the

“predominant role of the countryside as a site for production of food and fibre” (Burton and Wilson, 2006; Jacquet and Fergen, 2018). And as a result, they (farmers) consider the development of such solar fields as “a sacrifice” of prime farmland, as put by one respondent (#6). People who were against the development of solar either complained about it “taking crop land out of production” (#7) or were just “not happy” with the fact that the concerned site/farmland was “no longer going to be a cornfield” (#11). In addition, there were people simply with concerns about the overall “technology” in general (#8 and

#11); and few just had issues with the panels and perceived them as “obtrusive” and aesthetically unpleasing (#5, #10, #11).

5.3.1 The “there ain’t much to talk about” attitude

However, while the respondents did note some resident concerns during initial phases of the project, based on the interaction with the people approached while recruiting 95 participants for the study (in person and also via email or phone) a general indifference towards the project/facility was observed. The majority of people approached were either totally unfamiliar with the project, or, in the majority of cases, were vaguely familiar with the existence of the project but appeared completely disinterested in the project and the overall impacts (positive and negative) it has had on the three study sites. Even though many had some level of familiarity with their community’s solar project, they just did not have anything to say about it: no concerns or opinions whatsoever. This disinterest or lack of an attitude towards the solar farms was evident in the recruitment and approach of respondents for this study- most of the Key Informant respondents, as leaders in their community or key decision makers regarding the project, were approachable and happy to talk about where they live and about the project and its impacts, but many stated they simply had not even given any thought about the solar field before beyond the vague recollection that the project is “out there”, and these respondents directed the researcher back to the same handful of officials and respondents that were more directly involved in the project development.

I feel one reason for this could be the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ explanation. In the sense that a solar field is only visible to those in its most immediate vicinity. Unlike wind turbines, the panels lay low on a field, located on the outskirts of the main city or town, simply generating electricity without any moving parts, or even making a sound. In fact, I observed that, in a flat agricultural area, the solar panels receded into the landscape at even

96 a short distance away (a quarter mile or so). So, to even experience the solar panels at all, one must be right next or adjacent to it. Beyond the comparisons to wind turbines or other types of energy sources, literally almost any local activity – by definition of the word

“activity” - will have more impact to local life. For example, an agricultural field of corn or soybeans will likely have more impact on the community than a solar array, as the farm field requires various seasonal mechanical activity, labor, and chemical inputs, and the crops can be visibly seen to change as the growing season proceeds through time.

Another reason could be just the natural human tendency of not caring about something until and unless it directly affects your daily life. This ‘human tendency’ is explained by

Trope and Liberman’s (2010) “construal level theory of psychological distance”, which states that when an object is farther removed from a person’s direct experience, the more abstract is their level of construal of that object. In other words, this theory assumes that

“humans tend to think in concrete ways about objects and events close to them, and in abstract ways about objects and events perceived as distant” (Norman et al., 2016). So, as the “psychological distance” of an object increases, it is represented by increasingly higher levels of construal, which are more “abstract, coherent, and superordinate mental representations, compared with low-level construals” (Trope and Liberman, 2010; Norman et al., 2016).

Solar energy is not a divisive issue in general, and there are few abstract representations out there to anchor their construals. Compared to fracking, for example, where there are documentaries, feature films, protests, and so on that influences people’s attitudes regarding it. Accordingly, people are bound to forget about solar and/or deem it as unimportant; not important enough to even frame an opinion regarding it, since, in no way its presence is troubling anyone and it would require real effort to even notice it is there.

Plus, since it is not even affecting their electricity bills, it makes those in the city care even less. As seen above, even the few concerns put forward regarding the solar field are from people who live near the solar field or from farmers who value the land and have suspicions regarding the effects of this new technology on it. But in both the cases, the right amount of education and awareness about solar, its impacts and what the role of such cleaner alternatives are in achieving sustainable development, can help ease the energy transition process.

Further, on dealing with the concerns pertaining to solar of especially farmers, I’d like to quote one of the respondents (#5) retort here: “You know, a farmer will plant one crop in the season, though they will use the ground and the Sun to raise crops. They will harvest those crops and sell them for profit. And in some cases, when they have corn, they’ll sell that corn for ethanol and make energy out of it. So, what I’m doing is basically the same thing. I’m going to use the ground and the Sun in the field to produce energy, but I’m going

98 to do it year-round you know. I’m not going to just do it once a year and then let the field set.”

5.4 Application of DOI theory

As discussed under section 3.1 and 3.1.1, the theory of diffusion of innovation can also be applied to study the development of community solar in Ohio and in identifying the factors that contributed in this process. Based on the information received from the interviews, it is apparent that the development of the solar facilities, in all the three cases, was the result of the decisions made by key stakeholders: local authorities or elected officials, along with the support and guidance of technical experts. According to Rogers (1995), “innovations can be adopted or rejected either by an individual member of a system, or by the entire social system, which can decide to adopt an innovation by a collective or an authority decision” (pp. 28). The second condition holds true in all the three cases; the decision to establish (~adopt) these facilities was driven by the attitudes and beliefs of few key stakeholders, instead of individual members from these communities. This type of decision-making of adoption of an innovation is known as ‘authority innovation- diffusions’ and generally leads to “the fastest rate of adoption of innovations, depending, of course, on how innovative the authorities are” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 29). But, since these

‘key decision-makers’ are elected by the community members themselves, especially in the case of Minster and Bowling Green, which are public utilities that directly serve their community/members (see section 2.7 for more detail on public utility model). So, it will

99 not be wrong to insinuate that there was in fact some consensus among the members of these communities in this decision as well. Therefore, confirming that social system does have an “important kind of influence in the diffusion of new ideas” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 28).

Moreover, factors like state legislations and incentive programs, such as renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and the PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program, helped accelerate the diffusion of these community solar projects by not only making it mandatory for certain (private) utilities to obtain energy from renewable energy sources but, also making this switch towards clean energy more affordable for all (~law enforcement).

Hence, contributing towards the successful development of these facilities. Further, it is also vital to acknowledge the role played by project developers, who pitched in the proposal of these projects to the key decision-makers of these communities. According to Brown’s market and infrastructure (or supply side) perspective (1981), “promotional communications are employed to provide individuals with information about the innovation and to persuade them to adopt” (pp. 101). And this information about the innovation can be obtained from various sources like a diffusion agency, a government agency or from “a member of the potential adopter's social system” (Brown, 1981). In all three cases, the information regarding the solar projects (~promotional communications) was conveyed to these stakeholders by project developers or diffusion agencies. According to Brown (1981), a diffusion agency tends to be the “most important in exposing individuals to an innovation and in providing them with information about its attribute”

(pp. 109).

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Although one might argue that community acceptance directly did not play a role in the adoption of community solar in these three cases. However, community support and acceptance can play a major role in driving the development of more such renewable energy projects in the future, and/or in the expansion of the current ones. And accordingly, the attributes of an innovation will play a key role in persuading the community members for the execution of the same. According to a study by Rogers et al. (2008), an experience with an existing renewable energy initiative can influence acceptance of other renewable energy developments. Moreover, community renewable energy (CRE) initiatives in general are being recognized now as potential key actors in boosting the transition towards low-carbon intensive energy systems (Bauwens, 2016). And accordingly, the attributes of an innovation will play a key role in persuading the community for the execution of the same.

Corresponding to the DOI theory, the characteristics of an innovation, “as perceived by individuals, helps to explain their different rate of adoptions” (pp. 15). And these

‘characteristics’ include relative advantage (being more advantageous than other innovations), compatibility (consistent with existing values and experiences of potential adopters), trialability (can be tried, tested or experienced to reduce uncertainty), observability (results of the innovation are clearly observable), and complexity (difficulty level to understand or use). Thus, for community solar program to be socially accepted, it should be perceived by the community “as having greater relative advantage, compatibility,

101 trialability, observability, and less complexity” (Rogers, 1995, pp. 16). Based on the results discussed in the previous sections, the general public reaction towards these facilities varied a lot. Some people were able to derive economic as well as environmental benefits from the solar facility in their respective areas (~relative advantage, trialability and observability). However, according to the respondents there were few who had concerns related to the use of farmland for its construction and those who perceived it as visually unpleasing and affecting the aesthetic beauty of their neighborhood (~non-compatibility).

Moreover, there were also individuals with concerns regarding the overall working of the program, especially the cost savings aspect of it (~complexity).

So, if an individual’s ideas and opinions do not fit well with the existing projects, then the intent to participate and/or support any other similar future projects will be extremely low.

For instance, say the individual does not care about the environmental benefits of having electricity produced from a renewable energy source like solar and is only concerned with paying electricity bills, then the likelihood of his/her intent to enroll in a future community- owned solar project or for that matter, participating in any other environmentally-beneficial activity, will be low or non-existent due to incompatibility with that particular idea.

However, when an individual can see and experience the benefits of a community solar project, such as cost-savings on the bill, reduced carbon dioxide emissions, then the probability of participating in and supporting similar future projects will be enhanced. This holds true in the case of all the three study sites in some way or the other. In Wyandot, for

102 example, the development of solar field paved the way for more solar installations in “a lot of individual farms, homes and businesses” as stated earlier by one respondent (#2). In addition, the solar field also influenced nearby rural communities to establish their own solar fields and generate their own power. This was seen in the case of Carey village, which also has a 2MW community solar facility (Vaughn Industries, 2018). Although it is owned by a different investor and has a completely different back story, the development of that project however, might have been “encouraged”, if not influenced directly, by the solar field at Wyandot, as indicated by the respondents (#3, #4), with one of them (#4) stating that “I think, you know, it was the village, probably some of the other electric guys, that thought, Hey you know, we’ve got the opportunity to take this on.. They saw Wyandot solar go in, and they had the space for it and that, I think those factors kind of led to that happening.” Moreover, the solar project at Carey also is encouraging other similar projects within the village itself, with their school signing an agreement for the establishment of a

2MW solar array, and many homes installing rooftop panels, as stated by a respondent (#4).

However, these correlations might just be coincidental and should be thoroughly examined in future research, because people who are ‘innovative’ or who care about the environment will generally participate or adopt such renewable technologies easily without needing much outside motivation in the first place; as in the words of the respondent (#4), “it depends on the individual...probably for some people who already cared that might have been an encouraging thing…but I think they would have done it anyway.” There are many aspects to this process of diffusion and adoption of an innovation as already discussed before, and all them should be thoroughly evaluated and investigated.

103

Further, many individuals in both Minster and Bowling Green have also come forward and shown interest in developing a community-owned solar project after seeing the benefits of the existing ones, with the respondents (#5, #10, #11) describing this interest shown by people as their need to “expand those benefits a little bit more.” Thus, it will not be wrong to imply that the characteristics of an innovation itself like relative advantage, observability and trialability, etc., becomes crucial for encouraging both individual and community acceptance of such innovations and consequently, support for future similar projects, as they help individuals in understanding that technology and experiences its advantages for themselves. This is specifically true for people who tend to be more conscious and skeptic about new ideas or practices and make a decision only after its careful subjective evaluation and from “experience(s) of near peers” (Rogers, 1995, pp.

19) as well. In other words, “when people can observe and fathom a technology in use, as well as visibly see and experience the benefits of it, the likelihood of its diffusion and subsequent adoption gets enhanced” (Weaver, 2017), which is suggested by these cases.

Thus, as a new energy practice, the diffusion of community solar program in Ohio has still a long way to go as its adoption has just begun within many such cities/towns. And this successful implementation will depend on a web of factors including the cultural and political settings, the characteristics of the project, and the individuals interested in adoption, which was shown in the three case studies. The figure below summarizes all the factors that led to the establishment of these solar facilities.

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Figure 17 Factors that influenced the development of community solar projects under study. (Based on Rogers (1995) and Brown’s (1981) model)

5.5 Limitations of the study

The results of this exploratory study are limited and hence, not generalizable to the overall population of the places considered in the study because of the nature of methodology administered. A key informant methodology and a snowball sampling technique is common in such exploratory studies that focuses primarily on individuals involved in the development of these projects and thus are arguably in the best position to comment on 105 their development and overall impacts (Jacquet and Fergen, 2018). However, such approaches run the risk of an over-representation of individuals who share a similar positive perspective towards development of community solar programs. The study design attempted to mitigate these limitations by specifically asking respondents for contacts of people who held alternative views. Nonetheless, the results of this study are not representative of the entire community’s attitudes towards community solar projects, or representative of the views of other communities in similar contexts. In fact, it was observed that many locals that were approached indicated a reluctant acceptance and/or apathetic attitude towards the solar facilities, as compared to the interest and excitement provided by the key informant respondents. While not the objective of this study, a more holistic understanding of the community attitudes and perceptions towards community solar projects in these three sites would provide a clear assessment on the preferences of potential and/or actual consumers. Further, these interviews are just a snapshot in time and are subject to change with time, experience and also with project successes or/and failures.

106

Chapter 6: Conclusions

Given the importance of renewable energy in meeting GHG emissions reduction targets amid growing electricity demand today, a new energy practice called community solar, or shared solar, is growing rapidly around the world. In light of this, examining the ways in which energy consumers perceive and ultimately adopt this new approach will help solidify our understanding of this renewable energy innovation. Consequently, the current study explored the development of three community solar initiatives in the state of Ohio, with two developed under a public power ownership (~ municipal) model and one under the ownership of a private/investor-owned utility, but through a partnership with the local community.

The overarching conclusion of this exploratory research, especially regarding the first research question, is that for the development of a community solar project there is a need for either a legislation to make it mandatory for the electric utilities to switch to low-carbon intensive technologies, or provision of some kind of loans or incentives that helps ease this transition for them. Further, the findings, which are based on the individual perceptions of the respondents, suggests that although the environmental benefits of having a solar facility are well-recognized and appreciated, with the respondents from all three communities proudly associating their city/town around the solar facilities. Nonetheless, it is the economic benefits such as revenue generation and lease payments that ultimately play a

107 driving role in determining establishment of these projects within a city. Moreover, the development of these three facilities was also driven by the attitudes of the key decision- makers, that includes local authorities or elected officials (of a city/town), who with their open minds and positive outlook towards this approach made the adoption of this innovation possible. Thus, indicating the role played by individual insights and/or discernments in this process as well. Afterall, these individuals, who are the first to adopt such new ideas, can play a vital role in influencing community acceptance towards these projects.

Furthermore, the findings revealed that community support for these projects will increase irrespective of ownership, if their development triggers some kind of local economic development, either in the form of job creation or through involvement of local companies and businesses. In addition, cost savings on electricity bills further strengthens the social acceptance of these projects, thus, implying that energy is in fact perceived simply as an economic service and that social and environmental benefits come secondary. Moreover, the results also revealed that people in general might not have any issue with the development of solar fields in the first place as long as they are not directly affected by it, say through higher bills or any visual impacts. This neutral behavior is likely because of low familiarity with community solar, thus, indicating the need for educating people about these initiatives and their implications. Nevertheless, the present study highlights an excellent opportunity for future research within these communities, to evaluate people’s

108 attitudes in depth towards investing in these projects and examine the different characteristics of the project that drive intent to participate and barriers to adoption.

Overall, the study contributes to the emerging literature on community-based energy projects by highlighting the developmental process of community solar, and consequently the motivations of a community to participate in the same. The numbers of community solar projects have increased in the recent years, especially in the U.S., but still these initiatives are struggling in terms of gaining market and/or social acceptance. Further studies should explore the ways in which collaborative planning has led to successful development of community energy initiatives, especially community-owned solar projects.

Given these are still early days for community solar projects, particularly in states without required policy framework, there is not much work done in identifying what the most effective project design will be. And issues pertaining to land availability and land use for such projects still need resolving, so future studies should work along the lines of informing policy framework to ensure smooth energy transition. In addition, more work is required to capture the gaps between support and actual adoption of such initiatives as well.

With more and more community solar projects gaining approval in Ohio, future research work can be done to study the decision-making process behind the state utility board

109 approval of these projects as well. Additional research can examine the barriers and consequently assess the conditions essential for bolstering the development of more community-owned solar projects. There is a plethora of literature available for states such as California, where the solar acceptance rate is high as compared to the rest. Additional research should be conducted in other states as well, especially in places where this concept is still fresh to holistically understand and ensure the efficacy of these renewable energy programs.

110

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Appendix A. Interview checklist

Following is the script that was used during the key-informant interviews. The script was modified according to the information received from the respondents.

Introduction:

− Introduce myself;

− Describe the purpose and nature of the study: its objectives, research questions and

scope of the study;

Gather details on the following:

− Project design: size, cost, location, ownership structure of the project

(municipally/utility/community-owned?)

− Development of the project:

1. Tell me about the first time you heard about this solar project? What was

your reaction, etc.?

2. (for corporately owned projects) Why do you think the particular

place/region was selected for the project? (for community owned) Why do

you think this community developed the solar farm as compared to other

communities (i.e. what’s special about this community?)

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3. FOR BG PROJECT: how is the upcoming (community) solar project

different from the current one?

4. What was the local decision-making process like? – what local governments

had to approve the project? How many public meetings were there? What

was discourse at these meetings? Was there any opposition to the solar array

(if so, describe)?

- Project features: are there bill credits? Other cost and benefits of enrollment;

- Views on renewable energy, especially solar energy;

- Need for this solar facility (how is it beneficial for the locals?);

- Future of community solar in Ohio?

- Effects of renewable energy policies in Ohio on the project? What kind of

improvements (if any) are needed in the policy structure to help make these projects

successful?

- How supportive were the local communities towards this solar project?

o Do you think community members feel ownership over this solar farm?

- How important is community support?

- Ways of encouraging community support towards such projects?

- Any concerns raised by the community towards these projects? And how were they

dealt with?

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Appendix B. Participant recruitment email

Subject: Interview request for academic study on solar

Dear ______

My name is Ruchie and I am a Graduate Student at The Ohio State University reaching out to you about the possibility of conducting an academic interview with you for a research project on comprehending the development of community solar projects in Ohio. This research is part of my graduate thesis project and involves understanding public perception towards and interest in community solar projects in Ohio.

We have identified you as someone who is part of such a solar energy initiative and/or can provide us with insights on the creation and development of the project. For gathering this information, we will be conducting personal interviews and thus, seek your participation in the same.

In the interview we will ask you a series of questions about the project design (size, location, cost, etc.), features (municipally/utility/community-owned), public attitude towards it, barriers (if any) hindering community support and effects of state’s energy policies on the project. Further, the questions focus on gathering your opinions towards scope of such solar energy initiatives, especially in Ohio, importance of community support and ways of encouraging it. Your participation in the study is, of course, voluntary; questions will be open-ended, and you will be able to skip any question or questions you don’t wish to answer. Moreover, we will provide you with an informed consent form, which comprises of more information about the research project, contact information for 135 us and the university, as well as information about your rights and responsibilities if you decide to participate in the project.

Interview lengths will vary depending upon the length of your responses, but I anticipate a length of 45-60 minutes. We can even schedule a phone or skype interview, given your availability and preference.

If you would like to participate, please respond to this email at your earliest convenience with 2-3 dates and times that work for you during this month of so that we may put a time on the calendar. I am available on Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays generally, but am happy to work around your schedule as well. Thank you sincerely for your consideration and I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Your questions and feedback are welcome. If you are unable or unwilling to participate, I welcome your suggestions for other potential participants. I know your time is valuable and I appreciate any level of support you can provide. Thank you for considering this request and we hope that you will consider participating in this important research.

Ruchie Pathak

Graduate Student/Graduate Research Associate

The Ohio State University

And

Jeffrey B. Jacquet, PhD

Assistant Professor

School of Environment and Natural Resources

The Ohio State University (320B Kottman Hall)

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