This study, published in Energy Research & Social Science, and led by Karl Hoesch at UofM, explores one community solar project in a rural community in the upper peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The project contained a carve-out for Low-Middle Income (LMI) households identified through participation in the National Weatherization Program (WAP).
Through nine semi-structured interviews, 44 phone surveys, and analysis of two years of monthly energy consumption and bill data we sought to understand three energy justice impacts on the targeted community and participants’ perceptions of the program and its processes. We show that positive distributional, procedural, and recognition justice outcomes from community solar are achievable in a context without supportive legislation, under certain conditions. These results may have implications for expanding community solar to LMI households in small towns both in the United States and abroad.
There was a provocative story in Reuters this morning about concerns over the removal of topsoil, increased soil erosion, and increased sediment runoff resulting from large-scale solar development. Anybody that’s witnessed construction of a LSS project understands the significant earth-moving and grading that accompany installation of the panels. There is undoubtedly an impact to the land. Does that impact lessen over time and with proper groundcover, the planting of pollinator species in particular, sure, but let’s stop arguing there’s no impact to prime farmland. Especially since the number of LSS projects that have been decommissioned and returned to ag production stands at, well, zero.
As solar energy development accelerates, how do Americans actually feel about those large scale solar, or LSS, farms they see along the highway or near their neighborhood? A new survey has found that for residents living within three miles of a large-scale solar development, positive attitudes outnumbered negative attitudes by almost a 3-to-1 margin.
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan surveyed almost 1,000 residents living near solar projects — the first time a representative survey of this kind has been deployed nationally. More here.
Cheap panels mean a speedy transition, more solar farms, more clean electricity, more progress toward his net-zero goals. But cheap panels are made in China. So, more solar development necessarily means more investment in the Chinese solar supply chain, and necessarily less invested in onshoring that supply–bye bye CubicPV!
However, if Biden goes all out, incentivizing, and (hopefully) ultimately relying on, domestically manufactured solar, then the price will inevitably increase, meaning a slower transition, less development, less progress. Slower progress means less wins, which for Biden is essentially the same thing as a loss.
This problem isn’t going away. Navigating it will be difficult, if not impossible. And what’s so frustrating is that this problem is essentially the result of our giving up our competitive advantage so long ago. Not just on solar, but all things manufactured.
Jake White successfully defended his MSc. Thesis this afternoon examining residents’ perceptions regarding and preferences for alternate development to urban and brownfield solar development in Michigan.
He examined three communities and projects via an Every Door Direct Mail Survey. For more on his work see his Conversation article!
Congrats, Jake! Looking forward to your PhD beginning in the fall!
Michigan residents overwhelmingly want more solar power.
In the spring of 2023, nearly two-thirds of 1,000 state residents surveyed supported additional large-scale solar development.
In the Energy Values Lab at Michigan State University, we study how the public, and specifically community members living near large-scale wind and solar projects, perceive those projects and the processes by which they are approved.
According to a survey we conducted in the fall of 2023 that has not yet been peer reviewed, there may be less support in urban Michigan communities, particularly among those already living close to an existing solar project. Fewer than half of the 158 residents who took our survey supported their local project…
A property-tax alternative chosen by an Ohio county will likely give it more total financial benefits from a proposed solar project than the property tax option would, according to an independent academic analysis… LINK HERE
Reveal’s Jonathan Jones travels to Copake, New York, in the Hudson River Valley. It’s the site of one of the most contentious fights over a proposed large-scale solar project in the United States. Jones looks at what’s driving support and opposition to the project, Shepherd’s Run…
…Jones looks at ways agricultural communities are trying to make solar work on their land. This takes him to the Corn Belt, where he looks at how the U.S. is already using millions of acres of farmland to produce a less efficient clean energy source: ethanol. Jones also looks at a landmark agreement between the solar industry and environmental groups convened by Stanford University, which calls for advancing large-scale solar development while championing land conservation and local community interests.
In order to meet decarbonization goals, the number of large-scale solar (LSS) facilities in the US is expected to increase considerably. The advantages of LSS over fossil-fueled power generation are numerous and well documented. However, residents living nearby proposed and existing LSS sites have voiced a number of concerns about LSS, including its possible impacts to farmland and agricultural production, biodiversity, stormwater runoff, home and property values, as well as concerns about solar panels’ toxicity and safety. While rapid expansion of LSS currently relies on officials permitting and residents being willing to host these systems, the appetite for LSS in some communities may be waning. Here we examine the perceived benefits and burdens of recent LSS developments, conducting 54 interviews with a broad set of stakeholders including residents, officials and developers at seven LSS sites across the US. We focus on identifying residents’ most common concerns regarding LSS systems across states, site types, landscapes and ownership structures. We find concerns are associated with either LSS development processes or impacts, and center on the type and amount of information provided, the community’s influence over project design, the efficacy of community subscription efforts, as well as projects’ economic, environmental, and visual and landscape impacts. Importantly, we also investigate strategies that have been employed to improve perceptions and project outcomes, which include increasing in-person engagement, more explicit discussion of project tradeoffs, third-party intermediaries acting as community champions, and explicit requirements for meaningful local economic benefits.
Bessette, D. L., Hoen, B., Rand, J., Hoesch, K., White, J., Mills, S. B., & Nilson, R. (2024). Good fences make good neighbors: Stakeholder perspectives on the local benefits and burdens of large-scale solar energy development in the United States. Energy Research & Social Science, 108, 103375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103375
Energy Values Lab 