Frequently asked questions about solar farms

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, solar PV panels on just 22,000 square miles of the nation’s total land area – about the size of Lake Michigan – could supply enough electricity to power the entire United States.

Solar farms temporarily set aside land and protect it from permanent loss due to industrialization and urbanization – and that they afford a myriad of opportunities to layer on the benefits of solar since the land under and around the panels is protected for decades. As part of our Responsible Solar approach, Lightsource bp designs and implements site-specific Land Management and Biodiversity Plans to achieve biodiversity net gains, foster habitats, improve soil health, and support agrivoltaics.

Resource: Environmental Research Letters

Resource: Solar Energy in the United States (Solar Energy Technologies Office)

There are several reasons why farmland is ideal for solar projects:

• Farmland is previously disturbed land, meaning the impacts of solar on the land are greatly minimized.
• Solar protects farmland in the long term from urban sprawl or industrialization. According to the American Farmland Trust, America loses 2,000 acres of farmland to low-density, inefficient urban sprawl each day.  This kind of development is permanent, unlike solar. Once land is used for urban development, it cannot be converted back to farmland.
• Leasing a portion of their land for solar provides revenue for landowners and generations of their families, contributing to the economics of their farming business – providing a steady stream of income that enables them to keep the land during hard economic times. And in the future the land can be returned to farming.
• Roughly 40% of all corn grown in the US is used to generate energy in the form of ethanol and not used for feeding people. This represents approximately 40 million acres (1.6% of the nation’s land). If this land were repurposed with solar power, it could provide around three and a half times the electricity needs of the United States.

• With agrivoltaics, the land can remain in agricultural production during the life of the solar project.

Resource: Farmland Trust

Resource: USDA

Resource: How Corn Ethanol for Biofuel Fed Climate Change

Resource: Solar+food in ethanol fields could fully power the United States

Resource: Raising sheep on solar farms

Leasing land for solar development creates a host of benefits for family farms. Financially, rental income creates a predictable long-term revenue stream that allows family farms to finance growth and plan for succession, keeping land in the family for generations.

Solar can also improve and preserve the health of the land for future agriculture. Over the life of a project:

• Soil will be protected from erosion with stable groundcover underneath and around the solar panels – and no intensive tillage for decades.
• Far fewer chemicals will be utilized than when farming.
• Practices such as grazing and pollinator plantings will increase biomass production, nitrogen content, soil carbon storage and soil moisture.
• “Resting” the ground can return it to a better condition at the end of the project’s useful life, similar to fallowed parcels under USDAs Conservation Reserve Program.

Solar energy is also critical to mitigating the detrimental effects that climate change is having on America’s farmland. A Stanford University study says climate change has caused a 21 percent drop in potential farm productivity over the last 60 years.

Resource: Our commitment to biodiversity

Resource: Solar land leasing 

Resource: Stanford University: Climate change has hurt farm productivity

Resource: Stanford University: Global warming increased U.S. crop insurance losses by $27 billion in 27 years

As part of our land management best practices, Lightsource works to seed our sites prior to start of construction, often in partnership with local farmers or landowners. The practice of early seeding assists with soil and vegetation stabilization, along with weed suppression and stormwater management, prior to and during construction.

Post construction, for the life of the project, Lightsource bp creates vegetation plans that establish healthy groundcover that aids in holding stormwater and reducing erosion. In fact, our solar farms can reduce sediment runoff by converting tilled row crop acreage to permanent vegetation under and around the solar panels that help retain water.

Additionally, Lightsource bp is required by law to develop and comply with a comprehensive stormwater plan for each of our projects, often called a “Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan” (SWPPP). The SWPPP must include measures to control erosion and sedimentation. These plans are regulated by the Federal Clean Water Act and administered and enforced by state and/or local agencies.

Solar farms inherently lend themselves to habitat enhancement and conservation initiatives– studies have shown solar farms can majorly increase biodiversity on previously disturbed land in just a few years with the use of pollinator-friendly seed mixes.

We carefully curate customized seed mixes and other vegetation so that our solar farms can serve as safe, supportive homes for beneficial insects, birds and other wildlife under our biodiversity framework. We actively monitor and measure net biodiversity gain based on scoring systems developed by international conservation groups.

We develop solar projects in a manner that conserves important habitats and species. As a company, we’ve been building solar farms with the aim to increase local biodiversity since 2010. Our solar farms include landscaping to minimize visual impacts from roads and homes, often adding thousands of new trees to the neighborhood that also become home to local bird species. The study listed below, which includes several of Lightsource bp’s solar farms in the UK, shows an increase in biodiversity as well as bird species and abundance of birds at solar PV farms.

Resource: Solar Farms Biodiversity Study