4906.20 Certificate required to construct certain wind farms.
4906.20 Certificate required to construct certain wind farms.
(A) No person shall commence to construct an economically significant wind farm in this state without first having obtained a certificate from the power siting board. An economically significant wind farm with respect to which such a certificate is required shall be constructed, operated, and maintained in conformity with that certificate and any terms, conditions, and modifications it contains. A certificate shall be issued only pursuant to this section. The certificate may be transferred, subject to the approval of the board, to a person that agrees to comply with those terms, conditions, and modifications.
(B) The board shall adopt rules governing the certificating of economically significant wind farms under this section. Initial rules shall be adopted within one hundred twenty days after this section’s effective date.
(1) The rules shall provide for an application process for certificating economically significant wind farms that is identical to the extent practicable to the process applicable to certificating major utility facilities under sections 4906.06, 4906.07, 4906.08, 4906.09, 4906.11, and 4906.12 of the Revised Code and shall prescribe a reasonable schedule of application filing fees structured in the manner of the schedule of filing fees required for major utility facilities.
(2) Additionally, the rules shall prescribe reasonable regulations regarding any wind turbines and associated facilities of an economically significant wind farm, including, but not limited to, their location, erection, construction, reconstruction, change, alteration, maintenance, removal, use, or enlargement and including erosion control, aesthetics, recreational land use, wildlife protection, interconnection with power lines and with regional transmission organizations, independent transmission system operators, or similar organizations, ice throw, sound and noise levels, blade shear, shadow flicker, decommissioning, and necessary cooperation for site visits and enforcement investigations. The rules also shall prescribe a minimum setback for a wind turbine of an economically significant wind farm. That minimum shall be equal to a horizontal distance, from the turbine’s base to the property line of the wind farm property, equal to one and one-tenth times the total height of the turbine structure as measured from its base to the tip of its highest blade and be at least seven hundred fifty feet in horizontal distance from the tip of the turbine’s nearest blade at ninety degrees to the exterior of the nearest, habitable, residential structure, if any, located on adjacent property at the time of the certification application. The setback shall apply in all cases except those in which all owners of property adjacent to the wind farm property waive application of the setback to that property pursuant to a procedure the board shall establish by rule and except in which, in a particular case, the board determines that a setback greater than the minimum is necessary.
(C) The board shall approve, or may modify and approve, an application for economically significant wind farm certification if it finds that the construction, operation, and maintenance of the economically significant wind farm will comply with the rules adopted under division (B) of this section. The certificate shall be conditioned upon the economically significant wind farm complying with rules adopted under section 4561.32 of the Revised Code.
Effective Date: 2008 HB562 06-24-2008