Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Permitting reform, shaped by local and state governance, could eliminate unnecessary administrative burdens that slow the development of new electricity generation or increase its cost. However, the duration and outcomes of the permitting process are not well studied, especially for locally permitted projects, which are the standard for many parts of the U.S. Analyzing data across 29 states and more than 400 counties finds clear evidence that local (county or sub-county) permitting authorities move through the permitting process almost twice as fast, at near 200 days, as state-level authorities when permitting large-scale wind and solar projects. Additionally, there is a roughly 3x difference in permitting speed between the fastest and slowest states for both state and local permitting decisions. Further, more than 87% of state-level processes resulted in a granted permit, and 93% of sub-state-level processes, implying a high degree of application success.