The Evolution of Rural Solar: from Panel Monocrops to Multiple Land Uses

 

Solar panels may harness the sun’s energy in the same way that plants do, but while some rural residents view them as another revenue-enhancing crop, others see them more as weed-like nuisances that threaten their pastoral way of life. Solar projects are certainly growing rapidly throughout the United States, with total installed capacity just shy of 70 GW and a contracted pipeline of 27.9 GW, according to SEIA. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis of EIA data reported that solar projects occupied 258,000 acres in 2018, while NREL estimates that solar will occupy 3 million acres by 2030.

 

That may be a small fraction of the nearly 900 million acres of farmland in the United States, but it’s enough to make agricultural communities apprehensive  about the advance of solar onto previously pastoral land. While landowning farmers are grateful for the steady income that comes from leasing to solar projects, others in rural areas—including many state agricultural departments—are still grappling with what the growth of solar will mean for their concept of rural land and role as agricultural boosters.

 

Across rural America, states and counties have taken various tacks when it comes to regulating solar project siting. Connecticut and Oregon, as well as counties in North Carolina and Washington, have restricted solar development on prime agricultural land, citing concerns over the loss of farmland and impacts on food production. Yet solar development does not have to engender a food-vs-fuel trade-off. Some large-scale developers have made it a policy to only use degraded or marginal farmland for their projects, which can be restored by the prolonged fallow period of the solar project.