Local governments have imposed at least 2,600 restrictions on wind and solar power projects in their jurisdictions, with local opposition seeming to rise with the size of the project, said a USDA report on wind and solar development in rural areas. Wind and solar projects had a combined footprint of 423,974 acres in 2020, or 0.05 percent of the 870 million acres of farmland, said the four economists who wrote the report.
Solar farms accounted for 80 percent of the footprint. The Economic Research Service report looked at wind and solar development from 2009 to 2020 and said three-quarters of solar and more than 90 percent of wind projects in the country were installed in rural areas; more than 70 percent were on agricultural land.
Previous studies identified at least 1,800 local zoning restrictions on wind projects as of 2021, such as setback requirements, and approximately 800 restrictions on solar projects, such as limits on how much agricultural land in a county could be converted to solar power production.
“Additionally, there is evidence that restrictions have increased, have been getting stricter over time, and are more likely to be imposed in areas that have experienced prior renewable energy development,” said the ERS. “Researchers have found that local opposition increases as the scale of the project increases, particularly for solar, and decreases in areas with fewer natural amenities, larger farms, and more absentee owners.”
The ERS estimated that 336,000 acres were devoted to solar production and 88,000 acres to wind power. Solar farms were most common on the East and West coasts, and wind farms were found most often in the Plains and Midwest. The two forms of renewable energy provided 10.7 percent of U.S. electrical generation in 2020; 8.4 percent from wind and 2.3 percent from solar.
Solar and wind power generation were increasing rapidly, said the report. Utility-scale solar capacity more than doubled, to 45 gigawatts, in the four years ending in 2020. Wind generating capacity more than tripled to 119 gigawatts from 2009 through 2020. Projections of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 solely from solar power or wind power would require installations at rates several times larger than recent growth — 10 times for solar.
The 2022 climate, health care, and tax law extended investment tax credits for wind and solar projects, and included $40 billion in Energy Department loan guarantees for clean energy. The USDA received funding to help rural electric cooperatives finance renewable energy projects.
According to researchers, the benefits from wind and solar projects include income for landowners who lease or sell land to the renewable power projects, a new source of local tax revenue, and more local jobs. The disadvantages include changes in the rural landscape, noise, loss of wildlife habitat, and possible reductions in property values, said the USDA report.