Farmers fight plan to convert 1,500 acres to solar in Wexford County

Farmers in Wexford and Grand Traverse counties are fighting a proposal to convert nearly 1,500 acres of agricultural land into a solar farm, warning that the project would permanently remove some of northern Michigan’s most productive fields from production.

The project is being described as Shipyard Solar, advanced by Ranger Power through its subsidiary Shipyard Solar, and would stretch across Wexford Township and Grant Township. Reporting says the facility could generate about 300 megawatts and cover roughly two square miles, a scale that would make it one of the larger land-use changes under review in the region.

Much of the land has long been farmed by an Arkansas-based operation now slated for lease to solar development. Local farmers say they received little notice before the proposal surfaced, and they argue the loss would go far beyond the footprint of panels and access roads. Once the ground is taken out of crop production, they say, the damage to the farm economy and to the rural landscape would be permanent.

The dispute has also become a test of who gets the final say over large solar projects in Michigan. Public Act 233 of 2023, which took effect Nov. 29, 2024, created a state siting process at the Michigan Public Service Commission for utility-scale wind, solar and energy-storage projects. For solar, the law applies to projects with a nameplate capacity of 50 megawatts or more, which puts a 300-megawatt proposal well inside the state review framework.

That legal shift matters in Wexford County because it limits how much local zoning can do to stop a project of this size. County and township officials can still shape the fight through zoning ordinances and land-use rules, but if local governments do not adopt compatible ordinances, the project can move into the state process instead. The Wexford Joint Planning Commission was set to begin reviewing a zoning request tied to the proposal, signaling that the project is still in an early but active approval phase.

For Grand Traverse-area residents watching from just south of the county line, the issue is no longer only about solar panels. It is about whether prime farmland stays in production, how much control township boards and county planners still have over industrial-scale energy projects, and what kind of tax and zoning future northern Michigan is willing to accept.