The Fight

Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Spotlight

Solar’s Growing Farmland Problem

Almost half of developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.

Solar farms on farmland.
Heatmap Illustration

The solar energy industry has a big farm problem cropping up. And if it isn’t careful, it’ll be dealing with it for years to come.

Researchers at SI2, an independent research arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association, released a study of farm workers and solar developers this morning that said almost half of all developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.

Unveiled in conjunction with RE+, the largest renewable energy conference in the U.S., the federally-funded research includes a warning sign that permitting is far and away the single largest impediment for solar developers trying to build projects on farmland. If this trend continues or metastasizes into a national movement, it could indefinitely lock developers out from some of the nation’s best land for generating carbon-free electricity.

“If a significant minority opposes and perhaps leads to additional moratoria, [developers] will lose a foot in the door for any future projects,” Shawn Rumery, SI2’s senior program director and the survey lead, told me. “They may not have access to that community any more because that moratoria is in place.”

SI2’s research comes on the heels of similar findings from Heatmap Pro. A poll conducted for the platform last month found 70% of respondents who had more than 50 acres of property — i.e. the kinds of large landowners sought after by energy developers — are concerned that renewable energy “takes up farmland,” by far the greatest objection among that cohort.

Good farmland is theoretically perfect for building solar farms. What could be better for powering homes than the same strong sunlight that helps grow fields of yummy corn, beans and vegetables? And there’s a clear financial incentive for farmers to get in on the solar industry, not just because of the potential cash in letting developers use their acres but also the longer-term risks climate change and extreme weather can pose to agriculture writ large.

But not all farmers are warming up to solar power, leading towns and counties across the country to enact moratoria restricting or banning solar and wind development on and near “prime farmland.” Meanwhile at the federal level, Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing concern about taking farmland for crop production to generate renewable energy.

Seeking to best understand this phenomena, SI2 put out a call out for ag industry representatives and solar developers to tell them how they feel about these two industries co-mingling. They received 355 responses of varying detail over roughly three months earlier this year, including 163 responses from agriculture workers, 170 from solar developers as well as almost two dozen individuals in the utility sector.

A key hurdle to development, per the survey, is local opposition in farm communities. SI2’s publicity announcement for the research focuses on a hopeful statistic: up to 70% of farmers surveyed said they were “open to large-scale solar.” But for many, that was only under certain conditions that allow for dual usage of the land or agrivoltaics. In other words, they’d want to be able to keep raising livestock, a practice known as solar grazing, or planting crops unimpeded by the solar panels.

The remaining percentage of farmers surveyed “consistently opposed large-scale solar under any condition,” the survey found.

“Some of the messages we got were over my dead body,” Rumery said.

Meanwhile a “non-trivial” number of solar developers reported being unwilling or disinterested in adopting the solar-ag overlap that farmers want due to the increased cost, Rumery said. While some companies expect large portions of their business to be on farmland in the future, and many who responded to the survey expect to use agrivoltaic designs, Rumery voiced concern at the percentage of companies unwilling to integrate simultaneous agrarian activities into their planning.

In fact, Rumery said some developers’ reticence is part of what drove him and his colleagues to release the survey while at RE+.

As we discussed last week, failing to address the concerns of local communities can lead to unintended consequences with industry-wide ramifications. Rumery said developers trying to build on farmland should consider adopting dual-use strategies and focus on community engagement and education to avoid triggering future moratoria.

“One of the open-ended responses that best encapsulated the problem was a developer who said until the cost of permitting is so high that it forces us to do this, we’re going to continue to develop projects as they are,” he said. “That’s a cold way to look at it.”

Meanwhile, who is driving opposition to solar and other projects on farmland? Are many small farm owners in rural communities really against renewables? Is the fossil fuel lobby colluding with Big Ag? Could building these projects on fertile soil really impede future prospects at crop yields?

These are big questions we’ll be tackling in far more depth in next week’s edition of The Fight. Trust me, the answers will surprise you.

This article is exclusively
for Heatmap Plus subscribers.

Go deeper inside the politics, projects, and personalities
shaping the energy transition.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Spotlight

Trump Just Permitted a Solar Farm

Are more on the way?

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration appears to be advancing solar projects through the permitting process now.

After a temporary halt to permitting for solar projects, the Bureau of Land Management told me a few weeks ago that it had lifted the pause, but I had told you I would wait for confirmation to see whether projects could actually move through government permitting. On Friday, the Bureau of Land Management publicly confirmed that federal solar permitting can happen again, formally approving the Leeward Renewable’s Elisabeth solar project in Yuma County, Arizona – what appears to be the first utility-scale solar facility on federal acreage approved by the Trump administration.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

Solar Notches Some Local Wins While Battery Storage Hears Boos

And more of the week’s top news in renewable energy conflicts.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Hampden County, Massachusetts – Disgruntled residents in the small city of Westfield have won their fight against a Jupiter Power battery storage project.

2. Staten Island, New York – Speaking of people booing battery storage, the battle over BESS on Staten Island is potentially turning into major litigation.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Q&A

A Powerful New Transmission Coalition Arises in the Northeast

A conversation with Jason Marshall of Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs

The May 1 Q and A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is about transmission. It may have been lost in the shuffle but earlier this week, the state of Massachusetts led a coalition of Northeast states in releasing a joint strategic action plan on transmission planning. We haven’t covered transmission fights too much yet in The Fight (that’ll change soon, stay tuned). So I wanted to learn more about how and why this plan came together, especially given how crucial wires will be to connecting renewables to the grid there. So I got on the horn with Jason Marshall, deputy secretary and special counsel for federal and regional energy affairs in Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. We wound up chatting about how significant this plan is – and a little bit about folk music too.

The following transcript is a slightly abridged version for clarity.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow