Wind and Solar Leasing in Huntington County, Indiana

The project: Paddlefish Solar, 3,419 acres across two counties

EDF Renewables' Paddlefish Solar Project proposes a combined 3,419 acres of solar development spanning both Huntington and Wells Counties, with the developer citing more than $350 million in total investment and enough generating capacity to power tens of thousands of homes. The application was formally submitted in July 2024 -- the same day Huntington County's commissioners passed a temporary moratorium on new solar projects, a sequence local reporting attributed to residents only recently learning the project's actual scale despite planning on it reportedly dating back to 2019.

The county's response: a moratorium, a citizen panel, then a new ordinance

Huntington County's commissioners placed a temporary ban on all new solar energy development shortly after the Paddlefish application arrived, and formed a five-member solar review panel -- including both supporters and opponents of solar development in the county -- to recommend new siting rules rather than leaving the moratorium in place indefinitely. That process ran roughly eight months before the commissioners passed a revised solar-siting ordinance in late April 2025, which was then forwarded to the Plan Commission as the next procedural step.

The adopted ordinance's reported terms are specific: solar equipment (SES) must maintain 1,000-foot setbacks from the nearest edge of the right-of-way for a federal, state, county, or local road, and 1,000 feet from any nonparticipating property line. Physical limits apply too -- no part of a solar panel may exceed 12 feet in height, and no part of the panels or supporting equipment may sit more than 4 feet above the base flood elevation where applicable. County officials described the revised ordinance as intended to protect local farmland and directly reflect resident input gathered through the review-panel process, following backlash over the potential loss of thousands of acres to solar development.

What this means if you own land or are buying near a proposed project

If you've been approached about leasing Huntington County farmland for solar, the current ordinance's setbacks are the first thing to check against your specific parcel's dimensions -- a 1,000-foot setback from every road frontage and every nonparticipating neighbor's property line can meaningfully shrink the developable footprint on a smaller or oddly-shaped tract compared to what a developer's initial pitch might assume. Have an attorney review the lease's term length, payment escalation, and decommissioning obligations regardless of the county's own setback rules, since those are separate, negotiated contract terms the ordinance doesn't address.

If you're buying land near, but not part of, a proposed or approved solar project, confirm with the county Department of Community Development whether the specific parcel falls within a project's required setback zone -- land just outside the solar lease boundary can still be affected by required buffers under the new ordinance, which matters for anything you might want to build close to that boundary.