Center for Energy Law and Policy's Michael Helbing and Hannah Wiseman release Solar Ordinance Database

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA—The Penn State Center for Energy Law and Policy has published a user-friendly Pennsylvania solar ordinance database. The database includes filters for a variety of provisions in local government ordinances addressing grid-scale solar development. It is available to the public free of charge by clicking here. The database contains 4,900 ordinance provisions from 300 local governments across 57 counties.

Ordinance database research and compilation efforts were led by Professor Mohamed Rali Badissy, affiliate faculty, Penn State Dickinson Law; Michael Helbing, executive director, Center for Energy Law and Policy; and Professor Hannah Wiseman, Penn State Dickinson Law and College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and co-director, Center for Energy Law and Policy.

Finn Burns and Sakshi Jain were instrumental in populating, organizing, and constructing the database. Candace Boyle, Bienvenido Concepcion, Jhonathan Jesus Mariano Ordinola Diaz, Jiahang Ding, Owen Dombert, Alejandra Edwards, Binderiya Enkhamgalan, Amerika Jayme, Ariel Gootkin, Ons Jerbi, Swaraj Lakshmi Krishnakumar, Yongzheng Li, Mariem Ouslati, Patrick Quinnan, Leonard Sandler, and Benjamin Wyrosdick provided excellent research work locating ordinances and entering data. Funding acknowledgments: The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Center for Energy Law and Policy, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, through a grant entitled “Just Energy Transitions and Place,” financially supported this work.

Further, this material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) through the Reliable Energy Siting through Technical Engagement and Planning (R-STEP) program. R-STEP is administered with support from the Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has established with ENERGYWERX.

Professor Hannah Wiseman is a Professor of Law, Professor in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Institute of Energy and the Environment Co-funded Faculty Member, and Co-Director of the Penn State Center for Energy Law and Policy. Professor Wiseman teaches and writes in the areas of Energy Law, Property Law, Oil and Gas Law, Land Use Regulation, and Environmental Law. Her work focuses on the mechanics and design of regulation and governance in these areas. She explores the challenges of determining appropriate governance levels and fostering effective regulation that addresses externalities while enabling societally beneficial development.

Mike Helbing currently serves as executive director for Penn State’s Center for Energy Law and Policy, where he is actively involved in many of the Center’s research and educational activities. Prior to beginning this role, Mike worked in positions that integrated law with science and policy.