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Oklahoma lawmakers consider requiring state permit for new renewable energy facilities

Three wind turbines against a cloudy gray sky.
Wind Energy Technologies Office
/
U.S. Department of Energy

The Oklahoma legislature is considering a measure that would require more state oversight for renewable energy facilities. The bill passed its first legislative hurdle Tuesday, gaining unanimous approval from the House Utilities Committee.

House Bill 2155 would require new solar projects, wind projects and battery storage facilities to apply for a permit through the Oklahoma Corporation Commission before beginning the process of building the facility.

Rep. Mike Dobrinski, R-Okeene, who authored the bill, said the permitting process isn’t meant to be restrictive. It’s similar to the one required for new oil and gas projects.

“It's not designed to keep any of these new projects from coming,” Dobrinski said during the Utilities Committee meeting. “It simply allows notification and public knowledge of them, we hope, in a quicker fashion, just so that everybody knows what's going on in their neighborhoods, in their counties.”

As of now, Dobrinski said, the only regulation on new wind facilities is FAA approval to occupy airspace. Solar projects don’t face state regulation.

Generation projects do go through an application process through the Southwest Power Pool, the regional grid that includes Oklahoma and 13 other states. But Dobrinski said that process can take years, and the companies often start working on deals with landowners in the meantime. Those deals often include non-disclosure agreements.

“Some of these things are 3 or 4 years in the works before people find out about them,” Dobrinski said.

His bill would require the company to get a permit through the Corporation Commission before “commencing any such activity.” The company would provide a description of the project and contact information for the facility operator. The Corporation Commission would be able to charge them a fee up to $40,000 based on the size of the land or the generation capacity of the facility.

The energy company would also be required to notify people whose land would be directly affected and anyone else with land in a half-mile radius of the project at least 60 days before beginning any development.

An earlier version of the measure would have put the same regulations on distribution lines and transmission projects, but Dobrinski took that out with the committee’s approval.

“That amendment was brought to me by some folks in the distribution and transmission business,” Dobrinski said. “My intent with the bill is to bring new generation facilities under regulation, and I do not wish to include the transmission folks.”

Dobrinski said larger transmission projects are already regulated by the Southwest Power Pool and sometimes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Distribution lines, he said, aren’t planned without a power purchase agreement in place.

“That means a utility in the area — somebody in that neighborhood needs the power and will connect to the power,” Dobrinski said. “Those utilities are already regulated by the Corporation Commission. We know who they are, we know where they’re operating.”

HB 2155 can now go before the House Committee for Energy and Natural Resources Oversight before advancing to the full floor.

Graycen Wheeler is a reporter covering water issues at KOSU as a corps member with Report for America.
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