With legal costs mounting and a federal judge’s request to find a solution, the two parties involved in litigation over the solar development near Ky. 425 have come to an agreement that will allow construction to begin.
Henderson County Fiscal Court on Friday afternoon unanimously approved a resolution that will involve, among other agreements, county officials issuing a building permit on Stellar Renewables’ 421-acre project, an installation that is expected to eventually produce 20% of Henderson Municipal Power & Light’s annual energy.
Mac Johns, an attorney who specializes in renewable energy issues that the county hired for representation in such cases, said that at a hearing in federal court in Owensboro in early September, the judge presiding over the case told the legal teams representing the Henderson County Government and representing Stellar that if he issues a ruling one side will be very displeased.
“Get this done,” Judge Benjamin Beamer told the parties about coming to an agreement, according to Johns.
With money racking up from a $16,000 per day for failure to issue a building permit—which Stellar had sought in the lawsuit—and the possibility of paying opposing legal fees, Johns took Beamer’s request to heart.
Johns said the per diem total in damages that Stellar was seeking at the time of the early September federal court hearing was $1.6 million. The possibility of paying the other side’s legal fees pushed the total to more than $2 million, with an ever-increasing number if the litigation wore on, he said.
It was his opinion to not expose the Henderson community to millions of dollars in damages, Johns said.
With the resolution, there will be no legal fees or per diem to pay, and the community and surrounding landowners will get more protective terms which the project must abide by, he said.
The original site plan was approved in 2021 under the regulations set forth in the county’s solar energy systems ordinance first adopted in 2019. In 2023, the fiscal court amended the SES ordinance, putting in place more restrictive regulations.
But because the first site plan had been approved under the old ordinance and then subsequent extensions had been granted, the project had been slated to be regulated by the older, less restrictive ordinance.
According to the resolution, Stellar must abide by some of the provisions in the more restrictive 2023 ordinance. Some of them are:
- Equipment must be at least 50 feet from the exterior perimeter property lines
- Equipment must be 200 feet from existing residential structures
- Screening entails a double row of staggered evergreens with an 8-feet minimum tree height
Additionally, Stellar will deposit an additional $692,200 to comply with a higher bonding percentage in the 2023 ordinance.
“It makes them do more to protect neighbors,” Henderson County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider said.
The project’s site plan was first approved in 2021 and had progressed through a change of ownership and two site plan extensions, one in 2024 and another in summer of 2025 both approved by the Henderson City-County Planning Commission.
Thrown into all those moving parts was a solar energy systems moratorium, which went into effect in February 2025. (Furthermore, a proposal to cap the number of acres on which solar panels can be placed in the county is currently with the planning commission and should come to the fiscal court for a vote of approval before the end of the year.)
A building permit was not issued by Henderson County Codes Administrator Randy Tasa in June ahead of the proposed June 15 construction start date. According to Schneider, Tasa did not deny or approve a building permit then, but in fact county officials were trying to determine if the moratorium applied and were working through the legalities when the lawsuit was filed by Stellar.
Before the lawsuit, local officials were determining if the project—and its site plan approval—constituted an existing use—as in already in use—which Johns said exempts an installation from the moratorium.
With the planning commission’s approvals of site plan extensions for the project, planning commission officials and other officials had termed the project “grandfathered in” and exempt from the moratorium, Johns said. Talk about that language at the federal court hearing and emails that showed the use of “grandfathered in” led Johns to believe it would be a sticking point if the suit continued.
Another piece of the litigation involved a petition filed in Henderson Circuit Court by Henderson County Government and other bodies connected asking if the project is subject to the 2023 SES ordinance and 2025 moratorium. That action was removed from the local court to the U.S. District Court, and it is also moot with the resolution.
In addition to Stellar receiving a building permit, the developers will also not need to get the land rezoned to heavy industrial, which is required in the 2023 zoning ordinance. The construction can occur on the land as it is currently zoned as agricultural, per the resolution.
HMP&L General Manager Brad Bickett said “it was good to hear” that the agreement had been made.
HMP&L is contracted with Stellar, which will build the installation called Henderson County Solar and oversee its operations for the 20-year contract. The energy it gathers will be transmitted directly to HMP&L’s local system for use by the utility’s customers.
Bickett said he had not spoken with any Stellar representatives since the Friday afternoon fiscal court resolution approval, so he didn’t have a start date on the construction. He said he expects it will take about 12 months to build.
HMP&L had hoped that Henderson County Solar would be operational in early 2027. But with the delay caused by litigation, HMP&L was forced to sign contracts to buy energy off the market for the next two fiscal years, Bickett said.
Once Henderson County Solar is operational, HMP&L will have more power than it needs for two years, until the recent energy contracts the utility purchased expire, said Bickett. The excess energy will be sold back to the market, he said.
A message was left with a Stellar representative Friday afternoon, but he did not return the call before this article was posted on Friday night.
