More Standards Designed to Stop Solar

Approximately forty local landowners, along with other interested citizens who appreciate the potential of well-regulated solar have formed a group we call Limestone Solar.


We have identified 38 changes to improve the JPC’s Sept 2021 draft solar ordinance. These changes are modeled on the KY Model Solar ordinance and the Dec 2020 draft solar ordinance circulated by Judge Pfeffer.

This page discussed – Eliminating Duplicate and Unnecessary Standards

The Oct 2021 Draft proposed – “414.11 OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE

  • A. Physical Modifications
    • In general, any physical modification to any SES that alters major electrical components shall require re-certification. Like-kind replacements shall not require re-certification. Therefore, prior to making any physical modification, the owner or operator shall confer with the Planning and Zoning Administrator/Building Inspector for the City of Maysville to determine whether the physical modification requires re-certification.
  • B. Communications Interference
    • Prior to construction, a communications study to determine whether the proposed industrial scale SES will have any adverse impacts on any public or public serving utility microwave transmissions shall be completed. If necessary, the applicant or successor shall mitigate interference with electromagnetic communications, such as Wi-Fi, radio, t telephone, microwaves, or television signals caused by any SES. In addition, the applicant or successor shall comply with the following:
  • Post-Construction.
    • If, after construction of the SES, the owner or operator receives a written complaint that can be substantiated through an independent review related to interference with the broadcast of residential television, Wi-Fi, telecommunication, communication or microwave transmissions that existed prior to construction of the SES, the owner or operator shall take reasonable steps to mitigate said interference. Interference with private telecommunications systems such as GPS shall be between the company and the complainant.
  • Failure to Remedy a Complaint.
    • If an agreement to remedy a known interference is not reached within sixty (60) days, appropriate action will be taken. If further negotiations and/and or mitigation measures to reduce or eliminate the interference do not remedy the problem it may result in requiring the SES to become inactive. This Section does not apply to interference with private
      telecommunications systems. See Complaint Procedure in subsection D below.
  • Declaration of Public Nuisance
    • Any utility scale SES declared to be a hazard to public safety (unsafe) by the City of Maysville or Mason County by reason of inadequate maintenance, dilapidation, obsolescence, fire hazard, damage or abandonment is hereby declared to be a public nuisance and shall be abated by repair, rehabilitation, demolition or removal in accordance with the approved Decommissioning Plan.
  • Complaint Procedure
    • All complaints regarding utility scale SES operation shall be logged by the Operator. At minimum the log shall describe the name and address of the complainant, contact information of the complainant, when the complaint is
      received, a detailed description of the nature of the complaint, action taken to resolve the complaint and the date the complaint is resolved. If any complaint is considered by the operator to not be the responsibility of the operator a reason shall be provided to the complainant and so noted on the log. The log must be sent to the Planning and Zoning Administrator and the Operator at a frequency no less than once per month. Upon receipt of a formal complaint regarding noise, the SES operator shall be responsible for conducting a specific focused sound study to
      ascertain facts associated with a specific study to address the concern of the complainant and shall be financially responsible for the study. The acoustical engineering firm that conducts the complaint generated sound study must be
      different than that of the firm that conducted the pre- and post-construction studies and must also be similarly accredited.
    • If after sixty (60) days there is no resolution of a registered complaint the complainant may provide notice to the Planning and Zoning Administrator accompanied by a fee of $1250.00 that they intend to enter into binding arbitration of the unresolved complaint. Failure by the operator to perform an action specified by the arbitrator will be considered a violation of the zoning ordinance and subject to the applicable enforcement penalties and remedies. Upon receipt of a request for arbitration the Planning and Zoning Administrator will arrange for a time and place to meet with the arbitrator. Upon approval of a SES project the Operator shall continually fund a non-reverting fund (for arbitration
      only), which will contain no less than $5,000 dollars at any time, for the life of the SES project. Notification of the balance of the fund to the Operator shall be the responsibility of the Planning and Zoning Administrator, in a manner he or she sees fit. If upon notification that the fund is deficient, the Operator shall have sixty (60) days to bring the fund back to the prescribed minimum amount. If the payment is not satisfied within the sixty (60) days, the SES project will be deemed in violation of the permit. The arbitrator shall be a member of the Kentucky Bar Association, be on the Roster of Court-Approved Mediators in the State of Kentucky and not be a citizen of the City of Maysville or Mason County, Kentucky. The Planning and Zoning Administrator may appear and present evidence on behalf of a complainant if requested to do so.

These standards provide multiple examples of the Stop Solar group trying to pile on as many standards as possible in an attempt to make solar impractical in Mason County.

Let us review the sections whose only apparent purpose it to “stop solar” with a multitude of requirements that simply raise cost.

  • A. Physical Modifications
    • SES requires a long-term investment deploying a technology that is quickly improving. By our proposed regulation, any SES must abide by all applicable local, state and federal regulations. Our local Zoning authority has little chance and no justification for the expense to stay current on these regulations since other organizations are ready to have this competency.
    • There is no documented benefit other than trying to Stop-Solar for this burdensom requirment.
  • B. Communications Interference
    • No evidence has been presented indicating an SES generates any more communication interference than the electrical lines that power all of our homes and businesses.
    • There is no demonstrated benefit other than trying to Stop-Solar for this burdensom requirment.

These sections of the draft should be dropped because ason County already has a well-proven mechanism to address neighbors’ complaints on land use. No reason (other than to stop solar with endless litigation) has been presented to justify adding this extra regulatory burden to an SES.

  • Declaration of Public Nuisance
  • Complaint Procedure

Improved version

414.11 OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE

This entire section appears to be a solution in search of a problem.
Solving no demonstrated problem this entire section is another “stop solar” attempt to pile on burdensome regulations.
This entire section 414.11 should be dropped..

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