A study document on wind regulations in every Kansas county could guide energy policy across the country.

Kansas has one of the highest wind energy potentials of any state in the nation. But until recently, there was no central repository for the various approaches to wind regulation across the state’s 105 counties.

A new University of Kansas study stemming from the creation of the Energy Transition Atlas finds that each county uses at least five different policy approaches to enable or discourage wind energy development, a finding that could help governments and planners across the region guide their countries’ energy futures.

KU researchers recently created the Kansas Energy Transition Atlas, a GIS-powered site that features regulatory information for every county in the state. This interactive site allows elected officials, developers, landowners, and anyone else interested in wind energy to easily find information about wind policy, the number of installed turbines, transmission lines, and more.

In the new study, researchers analyzed data collected from all 105 counties to answer two questions. How do regulations for wind farms vary at the county level, and what factors might explain those variations? We found that approximately 70% of counties have some type of regulation in place. Of these, about one-quarter to one-third have “block” regulations that limit wind development, and about 40 percent of the remaining counties in the state have “enable” regulations, or policies aimed at accommodating such development.

“When it comes to wind power potential, even the Kansas counties with the lowest wind power potential have greater potential than nearly every county east of the Appalachians. Most Kansas counties recognize that this is an opportunity for economic improvement and that wind power and agriculture are not mutually exclusive,” said Ward Lyles, KU professor of public affairs and government and one of the study authors.

Fewer regulations in western Kansas.

The authors note that the farthest northwestern Kansas counties near the Nebraska border and the farthest western Kansas counties near the Colorado border tend to be the least-restricted states, and these areas tend to be the furthest from transmission.

Development has been paused in southern and central Kansas counties, which the authors refer to as the I-135 corridor. This region includes Wichita, the state’s largest city, and suburban areas along the interstate highways. A conservation moratorium was also in place in the Flint Hills region in the central part of the state to protect a respected ecosystem.

The authors found that counties in southwestern and central Kansas tend to have permit regulations, as do rural counties in central Kansas.

When researchers looked at what might influence regulations, they found that counties that rely heavily on agriculture tend to have effective regulations, while counties with large suburban populations and areas with high property values ​​are more likely to have inhibiting regulations.

In particular, county voting patterns, fossil fuel production, and wind energy potential did not predict what types of regulations would be implemented.

Of the counties that have permit regulations, most have tended to include those regulations in their zoning regulations. Approximately 26% chose one-time development agreements with wind developers, but counties using either approach were not clearly categorized. In regulations, project size limits were more common than nuisance considerations such as noise, so counties tended to focus on spatially oriented considerations.

The study was written by Ian Juguna, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University and alumnus of the KU Master of Urban Planning. Lyles; Uma Outka, William R. Scott Professor of Law. Elise Harrington and Fayola Jacobs of the University of Minnesota; Nadia Ahmad from Barry University was published in the journal Sustainability.

Njuguna and Lyles presented their research at Future Forward events last year, including Kansas Energy Economics, the University Economic Policy Conference, the Association of University Planning Schools in Seattle, the Urban Affairs Association in Vancouver, and the Just Energy Transitions and Places workshop at Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Florida.

Expanding solar and wind energy research beyond Kansas

The researchers also began collecting data on solar and wind energy regulations by county outside of Kansas. Lyles said he plans to analyze the results in a future study to learn more about the current state of the green energy transition and how governments and developers are leaning toward wind and solar. Both will become increasingly important as the rise of artificial intelligence necessitates the development of energy-intensive data centers.

The authors write that the study results show that Kansas is in a tumultuous phase of wind energy development, with a predictable “patchwork quilt” of regulations. But the findings of this study and the Kansas Energy Transition Atlas can help people in the state and beyond look to neighboring states to see what approaches have worked.

“What we’re doing in Kansas has the potential to benefit the entire Plains region, which has some of the highest wind energy potential in the nation,” Lyles said.

“It’s helpful for counties to be able to see how other counties are shaping wind energy regulations. In the age of social media, decision makers encounter limited fact-checking and even strategic disinformation. Tools like this allow policymakers to see how neighboring counties are shaping their wind energy regulations. It lets you know exactly what’s working and what’s not working. It also helps you clarify one piece of the larger puzzle and guide you to better decisions.”