Impacts & Advantages of Internet hosting Massive-Scale Photo voltaic — Stakeholder Perceptions

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A brand new journal article attracts insights from 54 interviews of residents, builders, and coverage makers round seven large-scale photo voltaic tasks throughout the U.S.

Regardless of nationwide polls displaying broad assist for large-scale photo voltaic (LSS, outlined right here as ground-mounted photovoltaic tasks ≥1 MW_DC) amongst rural Individuals, opposition from native residents and elected officers round proposed LSS tasks is on the rise. LSS builders now report that neighborhood opposition and restrictive siting ordinances are main causes of undertaking delays and cancellations. But, there stays a scarcity of information and evaluation on neighborhood perceptions of LSS tasks and the way residents understand the planning processes that led to them. This info hole hinders the event and adoption of methods to deal with neighborhood considerations and appropriately align proposed tasks to finest go well with and profit native communities.

In a brand new paper printed within the journal Power Analysis and Social Science, researchers from Berkeley Lab, Michigan State College, and the College of Michigan study the perceived advantages and burdens of current LSS growth throughout the US by means of interviews with a broad set of stakeholders together with residents, native authorities officers and builders at seven totally different LSS websites. The analysis aimed to reply two main analysis questions (RQs):

1. What are residents’ most typical considerations relating to LSS tasks throughout states, web site sorts, landscapes and possession buildings?
2. What methods have builders and officers employed, or might make use of, to enhance perceptions and undertaking outcomes and higher align LSS growth with native land-use plans, neighborhood wants and values?

A number of the paper’s key findings are briefly summarized beneath. The authors will host a free webinar on Wednesday, January 31 at 12:00 pm PT / 3:00 pm ET to explain the work and findings in additional element. Register right here.

The LSS planning course of and the undertaking’s native impacts have been key stakeholder considerations.

The 7 LSS websites included within the examine different throughout areas, possession buildings, undertaking sorts (e.g., agrivoltaics), ecosystems, and native traits. Throughout these websites, native stakeholders’ most typical considerations relating to the native undertaking centered round perceptions of the course of of LSS growth and the event’s impacts. For instance, residents and native officers remarked on how and the way a lot info was offered, the neighborhood’s lack of affect over undertaking design, and whether or not or how neighborhood subscription efforts proceeded. Stakeholders additionally persistently recognized the significance of significant consideration of financial, environmental, visible, and panorama impacts.

Respondents and prior analysis supply methods that could possibly be thought-about to deal with considerations.

The interviews, mixed with the findings and insights from prior literature, level to numerous attainable methods aimed toward higher aligning LSS growth with native communities’ land-use plans, values, and targets. These might embrace, for instance, rising in-person engagement, extra clear and express dialogue of tasks’ potential native advantages and burdens, third-party intermediaries performing as neighborhood liaisons, and enhancing the supply of native financial advantages.

A extra “community-centered” growth strategy might enhance perceptions and outcomes.

Finally, the stakeholder responses recommend {that a} extra “community-centered” strategy to LSS growth is required to ensure that proposed tasks to earn and keep assist from host communities. This strategy ought to meaningfully account for native considerations and values, with an purpose to enhance the outcomes and perceptions for communities internet hosting LSS.

This work was performed beneath Berkeley Lab’s Neighborhood-Centered Photo voltaic Growth analysis undertaking. Further analysis outputs from that undertaking, together with evaluation of a nationwide survey of practically 1,000 LSS undertaking neighbors, are forthcoming.

We thank the U.S. Division of Power’s Photo voltaic Power Applied sciences Workplace for his or her assist of this work, in addition to the 54 interviewees who gave generously of their time to supply these insights.

Initially printed by Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory.