Latest news with #HouseBill729
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Utility-scale solar projects in North Carolina could see 500% property tax increase
A bill that would raise taxes on utility-scale solar facilities in North Carolina by 500% is moving through the Statehouse. House Bill 729, known as the Farmland Protection Act, passed the Agriculture and Environment Committee Wednesday morning. Rep. Jimmy Dixon (R-Duplin) introduced the bill in early April as a way to address concerns about North Carolina losing productive farmland. The latest version of the bill repeals an 80% tax abatement on utility scale solar projects over four years, ultimately eliminating the abatement entirely. PAST COVERAGE: Is solar threatening North Carolina farms, or is there room for cooperation? Stakeholders with the sustainable energy industry and farmers who have chosen to lease to solar companies expressed their concerns that the bill would unfairly penalize a single industry for farmland loss, which occurs primarily through housing development, while interfering with agreements property owners and solar companies entered in good faith. Before the debate and public discussion in the comittee, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler voiced his support of the bill. 'We know that solar development has exceeded the amount of farmland we could protect with the Farmland Preservation Trust fund that we have,' he said. 'So, it is time to take a look at this.' A 2020 report from the American Farmland Trust ranks North Carolina second in states with the most-threatened agricultural land, but the report claims the biggest threats are from urbanization and sprawl from low-density residential land use. It does not mention solar development. The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association released a report in 2022, claiming solar occupies 0.28% of agricultural land in North Carolina. Dixon also emphasized the potential financial boon this bill could provide local governments as they start to collect additional tax revenue, particularly in Tier 1, or the most economically distressed counties in the state, which host a disproportionate number of large-scale solar facilities. According to a note from the Fiscal Research Division, this could add an additional $60.4 million in local revenue annually by 2030, one of the primary reasons the County Commissioners Association expressed their support for the bill. Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort), who voted to move the bill through the committee called the tax abatements on these projects 'corporate welfare,' arguing solar developers need to pay their fair share if they want to continue doing business in the state. 'We are subsidizing the solar and wind industry through these tax cuts,' he said. 'Now I'll hear the argument that we subsidize other businesses. Okay, let's stop that, too. Let's make everybody pay an equal amount of taxes, because that's what we're supposed to do under the Constitution.' Joel Olsen, who runs an agrivoltaics facility in Montgomery County that Channel 9 visited earlier this month, spoke at the committee hearing, taking issue with the idea that he is not paying his fair share in taxes. 'When I bought the land, we paid $972 a year in property taxes,' he said. 'Once we completed the solar farm, we paid three years of back taxes. We paid 100% of the real property taxes, and we paid over $100,000 in personal property taxes.' He said he built his solar project with agriculture in mind, with sheep grazing alongside the panels. Olsen said this bill and rhetoric pitting solar against farming doesn't take farms like his into account. The bill was reported favorably with a clear voice vote majority and will move to the Energy Committee for further consideration. This is a revised version of HB 729, original language in the bill would have also increased regulatory constraints by requiring the North Carolina Utilities Commission to refuse to issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity for a utility-scale solar project if the project is to be sited on land currently being used for agricultural production and also required all solar facilities to submit a decommissioning plan to the state. VIDEO: Agriculture Committee weighs N.C. bill to disincentivize solar on farmland
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is solar threatening North Carolina farms, or is there room for cooperation?
Every morning, when Jim Howie takes his cattle out to pasture, he's following in family traditions that go back generations. His family's owned this land just outside of downtown Waxhaw since the 1860s, and Howie says it's always been used for farming. 'If you go back to the 50s and 60s, agriculture was Waxhaw's main source of income,' he said. 'Everybody had some ties to agriculture.' Now, Waxhaw and much of Union County are rapidly changing. Howie said farms are disappearing, and in their place, the county's seeing far more housing development and often, solar. 'I'm very much a supporter of alternative, alternative sources of energy, but is taking productive farmland the best way to do that?' he said. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, North Carolina ranks 5th in the nation for solar development, but recently that development has seen a backlash. North Carolina bill would make it harder to build solar in the name of protecting farmland Several counties have instated moratoriums on solar development and House Bill 729, which is making its way through the statehouse aims to slow the industry further. Titled, 'The Farmland Protection Act,' the bill would remove property tax abatements for new solar energy systems, raising the tax liability for such projects by 500%. It would also increase regulatory constraints by requiring the North Carolina Utilities Commission to refuse to issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity for a utility-scale solar project if the project is to be sited on land currently being used for agricultural production. The bill's primary sponsor, Rep. Jimmy Dixon (R-Duplin), described the bill as a way to ensure solar does not take up valuable, productive farmland and that it's paying its fair share to the counties most-often used for development, rural predominantly agricultural communities. 'You travel across the state of North Carolina, and it's occupying the best farmland in the state,' he said. 'I think by experience now we see that this is an industry that does not need incentivizing, and it needs to pay its way.' Joel Olsen sees the industry quite differently. His solar development company, O2, which has built about 25 solar facilities, primarily in North Carolina, does so with agriculture in mind. His Montgomery Sheep Farm is a primary example. The property houses 600,000 solar modules, a few chicken coops, and seven herds of sheep. 'The sheep need the shade, they need the shelter from heat, the shelter from the rain and the solar really needs the vegetation to be kept at an acceptable height so that duality use of the land is fantastic,' Olsen said. Much of his solar power goes to farm operations, but he's also connected to the Duke Energy Progress grid to feed roughly 40 million kWh of power to the nearby town of Biscoe annually. 'That's enough to power about 3,000 average homes,' he said. Besides energy, Olsen said the farm is also paying far more in taxes than it would have without the solar installations. Agricultural land has state tax exemptions, so it generally pays a lower overall cost to its county government. When that land is used for solar, it comes out of that tax exemption and Olsen said, in his case, the Montgomery Sheep Farm had to pay three years of back taxes on the land. Finally, there's the taxes on the installation itself, the personal property tax. According to current North Carolina state law, the solar energy system gets an 80% tax abatement. HB 729 would change that to 0% for all future solar projects. 'That really pulls the rug out from the investments that have been made in North Carolina, the jobs that were created during construction and the opportunity to do agriculture here,' Olsen said. For farmers like Howie, this bill represents an opportunity to push back against at least one pressure point that's been changing the face of the communities they've worked in their entire lives. 'I'm very much a proponent of property rights, somebody being able to do with their land what they would like, but taking farmland out of production is a, it's going to be a bigger and bigger problem,' he said. Olsen said he's sympathetic to concerns about losing farmland, but he believes this bill is the wrong answer. He said farms like his show that agriculture and solar can be done together, and there are ways to encourage practices that don't pit the industries against each other. 'The way you develop this land matters,' he said. 'If you think about it upfront, and you incentivize people to do the right thing instead of trying to institute regulatory delays, regulatory fees and other taxes, on an industry then you're gonna have a benefit for the farmland rather than a lost opportunity.' As of Tuesday April 15, HB 729 has made it through the House Finance Committee. It will face a vote in the Agriculture Committee Tuesday morning.
