Elbert County draft rules would set setbacks for solar, wind and battery projects
The proposed countywide standards remain undecided, while separate project reviews are scheduled for Shepherd Solar, a proposed 199-megawatt facility with a 100-MW/400-MWh battery system.
Elbert County’s proposed zoning rules for solar, wind and battery-energy-storage facilities remain undecided. The records available for this update do not establish whether the General Planning Commission held a scheduled Aug. 18 hearing or whether the commission or Board of County Commissioners took final action.
The hearing was scheduled for 6 p.m. at the BOCC Hearing Room, 215 Comanche St. in Kiowa.
The planning staff memo says the draft would revise the county’s land-use table to distinguish solar, wind and battery-energy-storage-system facilities, or BESS. Solar and wind farms could be designated as operating with or without associated BESS facilities, with changes to the zoning districts where those uses may be allowed.
The proposed standards include:
- Solar panels would be set back 500 feet from residences, occupied nonresidential structures and public roads; 350 feet from private roads; and 50 feet from nonoccupied structures such as barns or sheds.
- BESS units generally would be set back 1,000 feet from residences, occupied structures and public and private roads, and 350 feet from nonoccupied structures.
- BESS units would have to be inside a project site rather than at its perimeter, spaced at least 10 feet apart and surrounded by a defensible-space buffer at least 50 feet wide.
Similar BESS standards are proposed for wind farms. The draft does not specify a setback for wind turbines themselves. Household battery systems designed and operated for a single residence would be excluded from the proposed BESS definition.
BOCC review would follow newspaper notice
The memo says the regulations would be noticed in a newspaper before consideration by the BOCC, as required by county zoning regulations. Planning and legal staff have held work sessions with the BOCC, but the supplied records do not provide a BOCC hearing or consideration date.
For a typical county zoning-regulation amendment, Colorado law requires a BOCC public hearing and at least 14 days’ notice of the time and place through publication in a newspaper of general circulation in the county. Elbert County’s notices page identifies the Elbert County News as the county’s official newspaper of record, effective Jan. 14, 2026.
Project pipeline includes Buffalo Grass and Shepherd Solar
Separate from the countywide proposal, Elbert County’s Community and Development Services project report identifies two large solar-and-storage proposals in the land-use pipeline.
Buffalo Grass Solar is described as a proposed 398-megawatt utility-scale solar facility with 200 megawatts of battery storage and related facilities. The report identifies the project’s locations by parcel number and lists the project and its related special-use-by-review case as “Community Meeting” cases. It records a July 22 community meeting but does not show final approval, denial or construction. The available record also does not establish which additional land-use approvals remain outstanding.
Shepherd Solar, formerly identified in the report as Grey Wolf, is described as a proposed facility with approximately 199 megawatts of solar generation and an associated 100-megawatt/400-megawatt-hour battery-energy-storage system. The project and its related special-use-by-review case are listed for “Hearing/Decision” review.
The county’s September calendar schedules Planning Commission review for Sept. 1 from 6 to 8 p.m. and County Commission review for Sept. 9 from 9 to 10 a.m. The calendar does not identify a venue for either hearing.
Those dates concern Shepherd Solar’s project-specific applications, not the separate countywide draft rules. The project report does not establish whether either project would be subject to the proposed standards, whether the rules would apply retroactively or how pending applications, vested rights or existing approvals would be treated. The available records do not show final approval, denial or construction for Shepherd Solar; the September reviews are scheduled actions, not completed decisions.