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Aerial drone view of solar panels at a solar energy generation farm at Sunset in South Wales, UK

A jury trial for a lawsuit challenging a proposed 159-megawatt solar farm in Douglas County has been delayed again until the summer of 2027, months after the project’s conditional use permit is set to expire.

During a hearing on Tuesday, Judge James McCabria and the attorneys involved in the case revised the court schedule after ongoing disputes in discovery. The plaintiffs – Grant Township alongside affected property owners and local associations – have argued that they need additional records from county officials to prepare their case.

The plaintiffs have been pursuing records from planning commissioners and other staff through subpoenas after Quentin Templeton, an attorney representing Grant Township, said Douglas County failed to provide complete responses to earlier discovery requests.

In response, the county and Terelle Mock, an attorney representing Douglas County, has repeatedly said that it fulfilled its discovery obligations, telling the court in previous filings that it had searched for and produced all responsive documents, including emails and text messages from county commissioners and staff.

On Tuesday, Templeton said the county forwarded him two emails in September containing notes from meetings about battery energy storage systems that were produced after a search of former County Planner Mary Miller’s personal email records.

Templeton argued that the notes – which were from two separate meetings in August 2023 – should have been found in earlier searches because they contained agreed-upon search terms, “battery storage” and “BESS.”

Mock acknowledged the late production and said she could not explain why the notes had been missed.

McCabria said the volume of records and the discovery disputes had delayed the case, and he allowed additional time for other discovery, with a new deadline for Jan. 29, 2027.

Grant Township, alongside affected property owners and local associations, are suing Douglas County over its approval of the Kansas Sky Energy Center – a massive 159-megawatt solar farm planned for farm fields near the Midland Junction area of northern Douglas County. The lawsuit was filed in 2024, and currently a temporary injunction is in place halting construction.

Since the project has been unable to proceed with the lawsuit, earlier this year, county commissioners approved a one-year extension on its conditional use permit. The conditional use permit was originally approved by commissioners in 2024, and the extension sets a new expiration date of April 13, 2027.

Project applicants are able to request a one-year extension before the permit expires, but the county’s zoning code does not provide for additional extensions under that provision.

The jury trial – now scheduled for July 12 through July 16 – is anticipated to take place after the CUP expires, raising the question of whether or not the project will move forward at all.