Local opposition to infrastructure projects (“not in my backyard”) remains a key constraint for any number of initiatives related to housing, energy transmission, power generation, data center siting. Even when citizens agree that “more” of any type of infrastructure is needed, those same citizens oppose local development.
Local community opposition has become one of the primary non-technical constraints on adding new generation in the U.S., especially for utility‑scale wind, solar, and some gas projects.
Evidence from developer surveys and studies suggests that opposition now contributes to delays for roughly half of large renewable projects and to cancellation for roughly one‑third, with typical delay times of about a year.
A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory survey of wind and solar developers found that about one‑third of projects in the past five years were cancelled and roughly half experienced delays of six months or more, with local zoning, grid connection problems, and local opposition identified as the main causes.
Community opposition and restrictive local ordinances often are viewed as leading reasons for delays and cancellations, on par with interconnection issues.
Project delays tied to community opposition average around 11 months for solar and 14 months for wind, extending already long four‑to‑six‑year development timelines and raising sunk costs by roughly 200,000 dollars per megawatt of capacity when projects are delayed or cancelled, according to the World Resources Institute.
In 2023, legal and regulatory trackers documented significant opposition to 378 renewable energy projects across 47 U.S. states, and identified nearly 400 local and close to 20 state‑level restrictions that are severe enough to effectively block projects in many jurisdictions, according to developers.
Cost, regulations, zoning and changing policies all play a role in shaping the pace of infrastructure development, but citizen opposition also matters.
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