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Solar permitting — Cherokee County, Texas

FIPS 48073

No tracked activity yet — coverage expands weekly.

F
Cherokee County, TX
Risk score 70/100 · Full scorecard →
Compliance: Very HighTrajectory: WorseningSaturation: Moderate

⛔ ACTIVE MORATORIUM — Active (Dec 2024); moratorium expires Dec 2024. Permitting: MORATORIUM — no applications being accepted. Ordinance under development expected to impos; hard Proposed caps expected to be highly restrictive; application fee $150; very high compliance stringency. Track record: den…

Key driver: Grade F: ACTIVE MORATORIUM (Dec 2024). ANY active moratorium = F regardless of other factors per grading criteria. Clearway Energy project denied. Commissioners Court actively developing prohibitive ordinance. Highest risk county in Batch 1.

Permitting process

Local permitting pathway

MORATORIUM — no applications being accepted. Ordinance under development expected to impose prohibitive standards.

Setbacks & buffers

Not yet codified — moratorium in place pending restrictive ordinance development.

Spacing requirements

Unknown — under development.

Size restrictions

Unknown — under development.

Penalties & bonding

Total penalty: +30 (Ordinance +25; Denial +5)

State-level permits & approvals

No state siting board for solar in Texas. PUCT regulates utilities; ERCOT manages interconnection for ERCOT service territory (most of state); SPP governs Panhandle/northwest TX. County Commissioners Court governs unincorporated areas under Texas Local Government Code. Many rural TX counties have NO zoning authority — solar is essentially by-right without county approval requirement. HB 2527 (2023) requires counties with solar ordinances to provide a 'reasonable' permitting framework. No statewide preemption prevents county restrictions. ERCOT interconnection queue is severely congested — grid study delays of 2-4+ years common.

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Full permitting requirements

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State policy & grid context

State RPS & clean energy policy

5,880 MW by 2015 (reached 2009) | Senate Bill 7 (1999) — capacity-based RPS | PURA §39.904

State incentive programs

Texas has no state RPS mandate. Key incentives: Federal ITC (30% base + bonus adders for energy communities/domestic content). Property tax abatement via Chapter 312/313 successor frameworks (county-level negotiation required). ERCOT wholesale market provides strong merchant revenue stack. No state income tax benefits developer HQ decisions. USDA REAP available for rural projects.

Grid & interconnection

ERCOT

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Full state policy & grid detail

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Battery storage (BESS) P1 State-Default Permitting

No confirmed county BESS ordinance

Local BESS ordinances & bylaws

County-level battery-storage status, safety requirements, and projects — each linked to a primary source.

Community opposition P1

No organized opposition on record for this county yet — no petition, group, or oppositional coverage tracked. Absence of opposition is a positive siting signal.

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Energy-related meetings & dockets P1

No tracked activity yet — coverage expands weekly.

State PSC dockets P1

No tracked activity yet — coverage expands weekly.

Sentiment rollup P2

No sentiment rollup yet (requires meeting transcripts to be processed).

Local news P3

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Data sources: public agendas/minutes from local government sites; PSC dockets from state regulators; news from GDELT and curated RSS; sentiment derived from public meeting transcripts. Last refreshed 2026-07-22. See the county risk scorecard or the full Texas permitting index.