Manchester Township Solar Farm (proposed) Blocked by ban
Proposed ~1,200-acre commercial solar farm in Manchester Township. No formal rezoning application had been submitted as of the Feb 25, 2026 moratorium vote; this is the project that triggered the petition drive and moratorium, though the moratorium ordinance itself also covers data centers and battery storage. No data-center-specific project has been identified in Dearborn County as of Sept 2026 — the moratorium is preemptive for that use.
Key facts
- Operator
- Linea Energy
- Size
- 1,200 ac
- Location
- Dearborn County, Indiana
- Stage today
- Blocked by ban
Source
read 2026-09-02
What to do next
Next step: Blocked by a local ban or moratorium - the project stopped at the ordinance, not at an application. Watch for the ordinance being challenged in court or allowed to lapse.
What has happened so far (4 events)
- 2026-02-25moratorium
Dearborn County Board of Commissioners approves up-to-1-year moratorium on rezoning for commercial solar, BESS, and data centers, effective Feb 26, 2026. · source - 2026-03-03public-comment-open
County opens public input process on new solar/BESS/data-center zoning ordinances. · source - 2026-05-01committee-formed
Commissioners approve a resolution creating a 7-member (1 commissioner + 6 citizen) advisory committee on the solar ordinance; 26 citizens applied. · source - 2026-09-09hearing
Dearborn County Plan Commission holds a special meeting to discuss the Draft Solar Ordinance; data center and BESS ordinance work remains paused until the solar ordinance amendments are finished. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 13 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Indiana IDEM — Office of Air QualityThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- IDEM Virtual File CabinetSearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Dearborn County Board of Commissioners agendas & packetsThe meeting packet carries the staff report, site plan and conditions — verified page for this locality.
- Search Dearborn County planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search Dearborn County property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- MISO (Midwest & Gulf) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 39.200, -85.000 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Recent news
10 stories tracked since 2022-09-04 across 7 outlets. 6× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 4× Local officials are moving to pause or block the project. Most recent: “Dearborn County community remembering couple killed in head-on crash” (WCPO 9 News, 2026-06-13).
- Dearborn County community remembering couple killed in head-on crash
- Dearborn County commissioners forming citizen advisory committee for future data center, solar farm proposals
- Dearborn County commissioners approve moratorium on solar farms, data center projects
- Dearborn Co. Commissioners Approve One Year Moratorium on Solar Farms
- Dearborn County Commission votes to approve year-long moratorium on solar farm development
- Dearborn Co. Commissioners approve moratorium on commercial solar projects
- Dearborn County plan commission votes against creating a solar farm advisory committee
- Draft Solar Ordinance Discussed at Plan Commission Meeting
- Dearborn County, Indiana Population 2026
- 2 people hospitalized following head-on collision in Dearborn County, Indiana
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 10 headlines archived.
Around here
- Dearborn County community briefing — Enactedexpires 2027-02-25
- Indiana briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Indiana
- DC Blox Warren Township (Thunderbird Commerce Center) — Warren Township (Indianapolis) / Irvington, 66 mi Approved
- Metrobloks Martindale-Brightwood — Martindale-Brightwood (Indianapolis), 73 mi Approved
- Meta Jeffersonville — Jeffersonville, 75 mi In review
- Recore Digital AI data center inquiry — Grant County, 97 mi Rumored
- Meta Lebanon / LEAP Data Center Campus — Boone County, 98 mi Proposed
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Manchester Township Solar Farm (proposed)”, aigridwatch.com/projects/linea-energy-manchester-township-in, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).