Tweaking solar regs in San Miguel County

Strong support for solar in Telluride and Norwood but an effort to get projects at right sizes and right places

by Allen Best

Perhaps my first visit to Norwood was in 1986. I had been at Moab and was working my way back to Vail. I remember that USA Today, then a new newspaper with distinctly national aspirations, had a newspaper vending machine in Norwood. Remember those things – where you put in a quarter or whatever?

The Denver Post, despite its motto of “Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire,” did not. You had to drive another 50 minutes through the twisty canyon of the San Miguel River to Telluride for that privilege.

I tell that story to suggest part of the reason why there was resistance to large-scale solar development in this western portion of San Miguel County where Norwood is located. It’s decidedly rural, proudly so, and has vistas treasured by the locals of Lone Cone and other local landmarks.

Tellingly, Norwood has a dark-sky ordinance and work was underway to seek designation for San Miguel County altogether, a first-ever in the United States designated-dark-sky county.

The prospect of large amounts of solar energy production worried the locals. A further compromise in the regulations governing solar development in San Miguel County was approved by the county planning commission on July 11. The amended proposal for regulations will now go before the county commissioners; no date has been set.

San Miguel is ready for only limited large-scale solar energy systems, defined in this draft of consisting of more than 30 acres. No more than three permits for these large-scale solar system on private lands will be permitted within a five-year period. Medium-sized solar was previously defined as 40 acres or less.

One other change of note: any project can consist of no more than 30% in land designated as “prime farmland.” That can be increased to 50% if the project employs agrivoltaics, which is defined as the “integrated use of land for both solar panels and agricultural production such as crop or livestock production or pollinator habitats, underneath or adjacent to solar panels.”

Prime farmland in the vicinity of Norwood, which sits at an elevation of 7,000 feet, or about the same as Avon, consists almost entirely of hay for livestock consumption.

The industrialization of remote landscapes, not just solar power, is a general question that, if it has not been addressed, needs to be,” said Dr. Bob Grossman, president of the Western Slope Dark Sky Coalition. See more at Norwood Dark Sky Advocates.

Adrienne Dorsey, of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association Institute, describes the review as an effort to get regulations right.

“The community has really been focused on solar projects that are right-sized and right-sited, and I think what came out of the planning commission meeting (last week) really reflects that.”

The institute is the new education arm of the industry group. It does not specifically advocate, unlike COSSA itself.

“On the Western Slope in particular, people are pretty concerned about large-scale solar coming in and consuming agricultural land and impacting wildlife,” Dorsey said. “The term ‘industrial’ keeps getting used, and they are conflating large-scale solar with industrial, which does not align well with rural and small-town values.”

As was reported by the Denver Post in June, San Miguel County in May 2023 adopted a six-month moratorium on new solar projects. County commissioners have twice extended the moratorium. The newspaper said 10 Colorado counties had moratoriums.

As this story was being proofread (the first time), Art Goodtimes returned my phone call. He’s known broadly across Colorado and beyond for his poetry and outsized personality. He has also overseen the Telluride Mushroom Festival for several decades; it will return again this year during the third week of August.

Goodtimes was also a long-time San Miguel County commissioner and a savvy analyst of politics. And he lives on Wrights Mesa near Norwood, one of the prime areas for solar.

“It’s not just about the scenic quality” of San Miguel’s landscapes, he said. And western San Miguel County has changed much in recent years.

He pointed me to additional factors: a 115-kv line between Norwood and Telluride has unused capacity, which antagonized some worried about the west-end of the county having to absorb impacts caused by the east end. There was also a wildfire associated with a lithium-ion battery and hence a desire to truly understand battery storage and its impacts.

And while there is generally strong support for solar in San Miguel County, he said, then there was a sense that care must be taken to figure out the best, lowest-impact spots for solar first.

Some counties have adopted moratoriums but have moved more swiftly to adopt new regulations. Mesa County zipped through a process in less than six months for communities around Grand Junction.

In south-central Colorado, Fremont County, home to Canon City and Florence, in une adopted a six-month moratorium in considering all things new regarding utilities, including solar and other types of electrical generation, storage, geothermal but also water and sewage treatment.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in March issued a report that attempted a comprehensive review of county-level policies across Colorado that regulate ground-mounted or free-standing solar (not rooftop) application. At the time, 28 of Colorado’s 64 counties had utility-scale solar applications.

See the full report here.

An early solar installation near the Paradox Valley along Highway 141 in western San Miguel County. Photo/Allen Best

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