PROJECT EASY GREEN

At the front lines of First Solar’s fight for its Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One solar power plant and NextEra Energy’s fight for its Blue Sky wind project, serious, dedicated people are locked in contention.

Behind them are hungry people who desperately want jobs and frightened people who fear that the quality of their peaceful lives is about to be lost forever.

With some 13 renewables projects in the works and perhaps twenty more planned, Antelope Valley’s roughly 27,000 acres of high desert lands are poised to become a renewable energy engine unlike anything ever seen before.

The two driving forces: (1) A renewables standard requiring California to obtain a third of its power from renewables by 2020, a near doubling of present capacities, and (2) new Governor Jerry Brown’s determination to meet the standard, typified by his recent call for authorities to “push” and, if necessary, to “crush” opposition.

At recent job fairs held by First Solar, an estimated 400+ men and women stood in line in the desert heat to submit applications for the construction jobs at the first of the Antelope Valley (AV) solar projects. In the lines were faces looking for a chance, many with a defeated look of flagging hope. Many were still youthfully innocent.

One young man, a graduate of the Kern County Community College renewable energy certificate program who has unsuccessfully submitted more than 60 job applications to projects all over the country, had confidence in his voice and promise in his eyes as he talked about what he had learned in earning his certificate. It leaked out as he described the rejections.

The job fairs represent First Solar’s fulfillment of the first in a series of demands made on them by Antelope Valley leaders, noted Norm Hickling, Field Deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who is “facilitating meetings between those parties so we can have that dialogue.”

The turnout was an indication of how important getting differences settled is, acknowledged Richard Skaggs, a veteran of Washington and Sacramento politics who is now active with one of the Valley’s town councils.

The very lives of the people in need of the First Solar jobs hang in the balance.

But there are stakes that reach beyond the First Solar project. Getting the template right for agreements with all the renewables developers in line behind First Solar is crucial. AV’s leaders intend to have a say in the appearance and handling of the projects that will be in their faces long after the developers are earning equity and counting profits.

Nowhere is this intent more passionate than with Lakes Communities residents who live just over Portal Ridge from NextEra Energy’s $400 million, 200-megawatt Blue Sky wind project.

To a non-resident’s eyes, NextEra’s simulations give its project a benign, unobtrusive appearance — but non-residents won’t be looking it every day and every night. “Blue Sky is green energy destroying a green environment,” said one resident. “Is that green?”

Vocal locals seem unimpressed by the $240 million in direct local economic benefits, including new local sales tax and property tax revenues, workers’ salaries, operations and maintenance, and land lease payments that NextEra says the Blue Sky project will create.

“Turbines do not belong on Portal Ridge or at the poppy reserve,” declared Susan Zanter at a recent town council meeting.

“This is something we can stop,” Cindy Romano told her fellow Valley residents.

The worst part of their opposition to the project is that the project's perceived intrusiveness is creating enemies for wind.

At the Lakes Communities’ 49er Day summer social event, wind opponents distributed literature asserting the health dangers of “wind turbine syndrome” that have been discredited by thorough medical reviews in the U.S. and Canada. The literature also made much of wind’s dependence on federal subsidies without accurately noting how much more heavily subsidized the nuclear and fossil fuel industries have been over the last several decades. It drew on outdated misinformation and discredited studies available on the internet to negatively portray other nations’ and states’ very favorable experiences with wind.

Lakes Communities residents are strong proponents for distributed renewables. Many would build solar panels and small wind if they could afford them. However, they are deeply concerned about utility-scale wind turbines’ blinking lights.

It is entirely understandable that these folks don’t want wind on their hills and not surprising that in their passionate need to combat it they would turn to internet misinformation that can be difficult for laypeople to discern as being inaccurate.

Developers are unlikely to win these people over with rational arguments. They just don’t want to hear it.

Is there a way to get renewables and the jobs they bring while at the same time protecting private rights and the beauty of the area's mountains and valleys?

Yes, suggested members of one of the Valley’s town councils who did not want to be quoted by name. There are tremendous benefits to communities that embrace renewable energy, said one. In communities where recalcitrants make up the majority, let them miss out.

Where renewables developers are welcomed, said another, they should offer the same kind of wealth-sharing that energy companies have always offered and go the one step farther that others haven’t to protect the locality with careful siting and conscientious mitigation efforts.

Renewables developers, they were essentially saying, must not only do the right thing — but they must do it the right way.

The July 2 fire at the site of First Solar’s 230-megawatt Solar Ranch One, where construction is slated soon to begin on the world’s biggest photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant, drew furor from the project’s Antelope Valley neighbors. But the fire may have been a blessing in disguise.

The burning enmity between First Solar (FSLR: NASDAQ), the project owner-developer, and Fairmont, the immediately adjacent community, was fanned to flames by the 71-acre blaze that required four helicopters, 12 fire vehicles, and dozens of county firefighters to control.

First Solar reacted aggressively to charges by Fairmont Town Council officers that the fire represented “negligence” and “reckless disregard,” calling a spin control meeting in nearby Lancaster. Barely had First Solar construction director Tony Perrino begun his PowerPoint presentation with diplomatic non-apologies like “We recognize there were some errors made” when Fairmont residents exploded.

“You’ve got thousands of acres of gunpowder out there and you set a match to it,” Fairmont resident Pat Chiodo told Perrino, FSLR Development Director Jack Pigott and Solar Ranch One Construction Manager Gary Baumeister. “I’ll put up with snakes and coyotes but I will not put up with fire.”

The fire was ignited by engine heat from a truck stopped in dry desert grasses by people doing soil sampling for First Solar. Los Angeles County Fire Department Battalion Chief Clifford Meridth ruled it “accidental.”

Desert-savvy locals think otherwise. Fairmont Town Council Secretary David Jefferies called it “either ignorant or negligent.” The ignorance, locals say, was the result of the company failing to consult them, which led to negligence.

Development Director Pigott’s previous efforts to reach out to Fairmont leaders at June 27 and June 30 meetings only worsened the tension between the company and the community.

With three-quarters of a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees that will be lost if construction on Solar Ranch One is not significantly underway by September 30, First Solar has an enormous stake in coming to terms with Fairmont. Emails obtained by Greentech Media also suggest a settlement with Fairmont might calm major institutional investors who, though not direct stakeholders in Solar Ranch One, can reasonably be assumed to be among those who trade in the solar energy sector’s premier stock.

With 33 solar projects proposed for the western Antelope Valley and 13 already on the drawing boards, locals are determined to manage the development in their faces. “If you come off as an arrogant city dweller, you’re not going to make it in Fairmont,” Town Council President David Kerr said of Pigott’s efforts.

“He just doesn’t get it,” Town Council member Barbara Rogers added.

Among Fairmont’s concerns are the visual impact of fences at Solar Ranch One and the environmental impacts of leveling the ground, especially as it affects dust and wildlife.

According to fire witnesses, First Solar was potentially guilty of significant safety violations, including failing to have fire suppression equipment on site, failing to have water trucks on site and failing to have a fire safety officer present.

Even more grievously, it emerged that the geotechnical specialists hired to do the soil sampling were from Long Beach, though Pigott had promised Solar Ranch One jobs would go to locals. “We want jobs for this valley!” raged a local.

Mel Lane, President of the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance, stood to defend First Solar but was shouted down. Declaring Lane a resident of Lancaster, a half-hour from the remote First Solar project, Richard Skaggs shouted, “Get them to build it in your backyard and then you can talk!”

As the confrontation worsened, Fairmont’s Chiodo looked directly at First Solar’s Pigott and forcefully suggested he join with other developers to fund an LA County Fire Department substation near the projects. “You know who will benefit most?” Chiodo asked Pigott. “You guys!”

Pigott looked suddenly interested.

John Sakers, First Solar’s Director of Environment and Safety, then introduced himself. It was immediately apparent he had the ability Pigott lacked to communicate with Fairmont residents. “There is no knowledge like local knowledge,” Sakers told them. “I hear the need for communication. I’d like to offer myself as a liaison.”

Baumeister added a promise to stop all further hiring until he learned more about the local workforce from Fairmont leaders.

Shutting down his uncompleted PowerPoint presentation, Perrino said he needed to add a last bullet point reading “talk to locals.”

A half-hour later at a previously scheduled Fairmont Town Council meeting, First Solar’s Sakers — who had hustled over — quieted an even more hostile and larger group of Fairmont residents by telling them he considered the fire to be the result of “an abysmal failure” by his company. “It was a completely unsatisfactory event,” he said. “Nothing about it was good. We will fix it.”

Fairmont’s Jefferies seemed interested. “You’ve got a deadline,” he told Sakers. “But your dollars are our dollars.”

At the end of the Town Council meeting, Fairmont voted to send a letter to the County Planning Commission asking for a review of the Solar Ranch One permit. But the meeting of minds in the two meetings suggested the possibility had finally emerged for a settlement similar to the one Fairmont reached this past spring with NRG Solar, heavy on considerations for the quality of life in Fairmont along with financial considerations for the community at large.

In response to a fire at First Solar's proposed 230-megawatt photovoltaic (PV) Solar Ranch One site, where construction on the world's biggest PV power plant was supposed to begin July 5, the developer is about to see more hostility from the community of Fairmont, its Antelope Valley neighbor.

Fairmont Town Council Secretary David Jefferies, also an attorney, called the July 2 fire "negligence" and possible "reckless disregard" by First Solar (FSLR: NASDAQ). The fire burned over 70 acres before a 90-minute response from County firefighters suppressed it. LA County Fire Department Battalion Chief Clifford Meridth said it was the “accidental” result of a truck driving across the property.

"If you drive a vehicle with a hot engine through three-foot-tall, bone-dry grass, you're either ignorant or negligent," Jefferies insisted. “The company claims it wants to be a good neighbor,” Jefferies said, "but good neighbors don't start fires, especially at this time of the year.”

Jefferies also raised questions about possible First Solar operational safety violations, including failing to have fire suppression equipment on site, failing to have water trucks on site and failing to have a fire safety officer present. He claimed First Solar could be held responsible for fire-fighting costs. Fairmont's apparent intention to pursue legal remedies is an indication of the hostility between the community and the company.

“First Solar is investigating the incident and has spoken to local fire officials,” said company spokesman Alan Bernheimer. He pointed out that it was officially ruled accidental, but added that First Solar “will ensure that if any neighbors suffered damages from the fire, they will be fairly compensated.”

Bernheimer confirmed the cause of the fire. “The truck belonged to a technical consulting firm doing survey work on the project for upcoming site soils testing,” he reported. When construction starts later this month, “First Solar will have a fire safety plan in place,” Bernheimer promised. “Active First Solar construction sites always have safety personnel present.”

When First Solar set out to develop Solar Ranch One in 2008, it was directed to the nearby Antelope Acres Town Council. Following over 100 stakeholder meetings, the company conformed to all federal, state and local guidelines in obtaining the project’s permit. It also paid $140,000 in financial considerations to Antelope Acres, which is roughly 12 miles from the project site.

Fairmont, an agricultural community founded in the nineteenth century that is literally across the street from Solar Ranch One, constituted a Town Council in November 2010, after FSLR’s preparations were complete. Fairmont’s subsequent attempts to get the developer to recognize it and negotiate considerations went unanswered.

Jefferies said Fairmont is prepared to take further legal action. It may seek an injunction to delay construction. “We are not against renewable energy,” he insisted, but “we have five attorneys with hundreds of years of [accumulated] legal experience in our group,” Jeffries said, and “First Solar is unreasonably threatening our way of life. 'Unreasonably' is the important word."

Fairmont’s people are adamant about on-the-ground matters, including fences that will surround the installation, desert recreation area access, dust coming off the cleared and leveled land, and wildlife that may be displaced to nearby yards.

They are even more concerned with how much water Solar Ranch One operations will require, who will administer desert lands purchased to mitigate the project’s impacts, who will get the jobs at Solar Ranch One, and what public benefits First Solar will offer the community. Water concerns might be overblown — First Solar does not wash the panels, according to the firm.

First Solar said its cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV project will use no more water on the 4,000-acre site than would be used by 12 houses. Fences will be set back to limit aesthetic objections and placed off the ground to accommodate wildlife. Dust will be kept in check during construction by water and solvents and during operation by re-vegetation. There will be recreational access to the site. Three hundred construction and 20 permanent jobs will go to locals — if Fairmont does not block Solar Ranch One.

“We will continue to meet with the parties concerned to reach a mutually acceptable resolution,” Bernheimer promised.

First Solar Development Director Jack Pigott said at a June 27 Fairmont Town Council meeting that construction would begin July 5. It did not. If work on the project does not get significantly started by September 30, it stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal financial provisions, including a $680 million DOE loan guarantee awarded just last week.

And there is evidence of another potentially serious problem for First Solar. Investors in the solar energy industry’s premier stock seem jumpy. Two separate sources reported that as many as 10 major financial institutions have been making inquiries locally about the project’s impeded progress. Emails obtained by Greentech Media show that international banking giant Credit Suisse as well as Greenlight Capital and Maxim Group are among them.

First Solar’s Bernheimer declined to comment on this.

Fairmont only wants, Jefferies said, for First Solar “to do the best job they are capable of doing.” But, he went on, “the fire is symptomatic of their attitude.”

Fairmont’s people, Jefferies said, "are aware that we need to free ourselves from dependence on foreign oil. We are aware that U.S. nuclear capacity will likely not expand. We are aware there are serious questions about coal. And we are aware that the Western Antelope Valley is the place for solar and clearly the place for wind.”

But, Jefferies said of First Solar, “They think we don’t exist.”