Lately, I have watched in dismay the growing opposition to solar in western Massachusetts and the lack of understanding many residents seem to have about the complexities of solar siting.
Many are calling for a halt to ground-mounted solar projects on forest land, claiming that cutting down forests that sequester carbon to create renewable energy must stop. I strongly agree that our forests need protecting, and that siting solar on the built environment is always preferable and should be supported through government incentives.
But framing solar siting as a choice between cutting down forests for solar on the one hand and protecting forests from solar on the other is very misleading.
■ First, most ground-mount solar projects are constructed on leased private property. If land is not leased for solar, nothing will prevent the landowner from developing the land for other commercial purposes or housing.
■ Second, installing solar on forestland is not considered permanent development. Solar projects typically remain in place for the duration of the solar program in which they are enrolled, which for the current Massachusetts SMART program is 20 years. When the program is over, the solar facility is decommissioned and the land can return to its natural state. This is not true for other types of development. Forest land that is developed for a strip mall or housing will never return to forest.
■ Third, leasing land for solar involves little out-of-pocket cost to the landowner, making it an attractive revenue-producing option. Since solar development is not permanent, leasing forest land for solar can be thought of as way to allow forestland owners to obtain revenue from their land while simultaneously protecting it from permanent development.
■ Fourth, solar developers must pay all costs associated with solar development, including costs of interconnecting their projects to the local electric utility’s distribution system. The closer a solar project is to the point of interconnection with the utility’s distribution system, the more logistically and economically viable the project.
Conversely, solar projects located a great distance from the point of interconnection are much less likely to be built. This serves as a practical limitation on the number and location of ground-mount solar projects on tracts of undeveloped forest land.
■ Fifth, siting solar on the built environment is often more costly than siting solar on undeveloped land. Solar projects constructed on commercial rooftops and parking areas are typically smaller than ground-mount projects and since development costs are similar no matter the project size, these projects tend to be less cost-effective.
There are also extra costs associated with constructing solar on developed land. For example, the rooftops of commercial buildings often need replacing before they can hold the weight of a solar system, adding significantly to the cost of installation. Solar canopies erected over parking areas are much more expensive to install than typical ground-mount systems, and with recent increases in steel prices are cost-prohibitive for many solar developers.
■Sixth, many studies demonstrate the net carbon gain of removing trees for solar, at least in some instances. It goes without saying that removing trees for other forms of development is never carbon-neutral.
■Lastly, the Massachusetts SMART program has extensive built-in siting requirements that prohibit solar in certain areas and financially discourage and incentivize solar development in other areas. The anti-solar voices I hear speak as if these program requirements don’t exist, suggesting that many solar opponents are largely unfamiliar with the Massachusetts SMART program and its siting requirements.
Some area residents also oppose installing solar on farmland. Recently a “dual-use” solar project proposed for a Northfield farm (that is, a project with elevated solar arrays to enable continued farming of the underlying land) met with opposition from community members, some of whom objected that the erection of solar panels would interfere with their pastoral views.
It should go without saying that Massachusetts farmers are trying to support their families and grow food for their communities and are not responsible for providing a landscape view for their suburban neighbors.
Moreover, installing dual-use solar on farmland enables farmers to obtain revenue from solar while they continue to farm the land, thereby helping farmers to preserve their land as farmland, a goal we should all embrace.
For the sake of equity and environmental justice, we should also be striving to site the facilities that produce the electricity we consume in our own neighborhoods and not force low-income neighborhoods to inequitably shoulder this burden as we have done so frequently in the past.
In our ever-warming world, we can’t afford to oversimplify the challenges we face. We must properly educate ourselves about solar siting and work together to balance priorities as we move towards carbon neutrality.
Sarah Matthews is an Amherst resident and an attorney with Klavens Law Group PC, a Boston-based renewable energy/social mission law firm, where her work includes assisting the firm’s solar energy clients with their project development work.