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Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

  • 1.  Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-23-2021 08:18 PM
    Having a renewable energy source like solar is an excellent way to cut down on greenhouse emissions as opposed to large outputs such as gas and coal. However, it's important to also think about what types of environmental damages can come with solar panel installation. What is the biggest risk that should be taken into consideration, and which factors should be most important to think about before putting solar panels into a new area?

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    Mackenzie Blair
    mblair@ases.org
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  • 2.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-24-2021 10:43 AM
    While this isn't specific to an area, I think a risk that is often overlooked for solar is proper disposal of panels at the end of their life. Panels may contain heavy metals like lead that can leech out and become harmful to the environment if they aren't disposed of properly. It is important that panels be recycled properly in order to reduce waste and make sure that the potentially hazardous materials they contain don't cause unintended harm.


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    Terrell Cato
    Wilmington DE
    tcato@ases.org
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  • 3.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    ASES Board Member
    Posted 02-24-2021 11:47 AM
    All large scale energy facilities have a big landuse problem, and solar is no exception. Most of the large, utility scale solar currently installed in the US are installed on open agricultural lands, and in many cases, the trees are cut to make room for solar installation. A typical 1 MW of solar installation uses about 6 acers of land, which comes off to be a significant chuck of land. 

    There are talks about how we can design such solar farm land with multiuse- pollinator habitat, or sheep farming, but both of them have not proven to be commercially economically. This usually due to the design- to cut on the costs of solar installation, the height of the solar frames are made short, which does not allow grasses to be grown. They are also spread of large amount of herbicide kill any plants that may shade the solar panels. 


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    Achyut Shrestha
    achyut.achyut@gmail.com
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  • 4.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-24-2021 01:42 PM
    Edited by Matthew Dean 02-24-2021 04:58 PM
    A 2016 study by Environment America and The Frontier Group claims that the roofs of malls and big box stores in the US have the potential for 60 GW of PV. Then there's parking lots, capped landfills, and a host of other possibilities. We just have to stop utilities and solar developers from doing whatever is cheap and easy.

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    Matthew Dean
    Consultant
    self-employed
    mattdean@gmx.com
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  • 5.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-25-2021 11:15 PM
    Regarding the land use concerns, the integration of habitat-friendly or pollinator ground cover into solar farms has been done quite successfully in a number of cases.  Analyses completed by the National Renewable Energy Lab, Argonne National Lab, and a number of research universities shows that solar farms can be a means to restore degraded watersheds and provide ecological services including habitat restoration.  Direct agricultural co-location is currently limited to niche markets, although solar grazing with sheep has clear value-added applications.  Agricultural integration via a business model that emphasizes agricultural income diversification has been done successfully in a number of instances and has widespread opportunities. 
    Replacing row crops with solar farms that use native and naturalized deep-rooted grasses and forbs dramatically reduces nitrate risk to groundwater and sedimentation to surface waters, creating (if done correctly) water quality benefits....

    But it's all in the site design and siting criteria, to turn a project from a potential liability into an ecological asset.

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    Brian Ross
    Great Plains Institute
    Minneapolis MN
    bross@gpisd.net
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  • 6.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    ASES Life Member
    Posted 02-25-2021 12:36 PM
    Achyut,

    Fellow ASES member and Principal Researcher for Energy and Environment - National Regulatory Research Institute Tom Stanton and I joined a United Solar Neighbors webinar this morning "Exploring Farming and Solar Synergies in Maryland" which had research on actual economic benefits of Agrivoltaics. I'll try and post that webinar when they send out the link. Here is one exploration:

    https://ieer.org/resource/energy-issues/exploring-farming-and-solar-synergies-how-dual-use-solar-can-improve-farm-economics-and-farm-ecology/


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    Andrew Stone
    CEO
    PACE Fund NM
    andrew@stone.com
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  • 7.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-26-2021 01:34 PM
    Thank you for the shout out, Andrew Stone. 
    That was a very helpful Webinar, and this looks like a great opportunity in Maryland. I also learned yesterday a major set of related policies are being sought in Wisconsin.  

    Here are the links:  

    Video recording: https://youtu.be/BRYGY498gsU
    Chat log and registrant list (without contact information): https://bit.ly/2ZS2JRC
    Full paper and presentation slides: https://bit.ly/3ss6AkC  

    I started building Agrivoltaics and Floatovoltaics pages on the Appropriate technology and sustainable development Wiki, named Appropedia.  You can visit and add materials at: 


    --
     Tom Stanton
     office/mobile 517-775-7764 





  • 8.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    ASES Life Member
    Posted 02-25-2021 08:09 PM
    Solar arrays should not be placed on food crop land indicated as suitable based on global warming impacts. Mankind will need all suitable cropland as our population increases and food production areas are shifted due to global warming.
    Almost as important, before securing solar access rights for about 30 years, is will the local land jurisdiction allow tracking solar arrays.

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    David Stout
    Environmental Engineer
    dstout354@gmail.com
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  • 9.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    ASES Life Member
    Posted 02-26-2021 09:19 AM
    These researchers found positive effects of adding PV's to farmland. I agree that CORN - a food - should not be turned into a fuel, but if there are synergistic mutually reinforcing benefits of adding PV's to farmland - especially out here in the desert SouthWest where we have begun to need to shade our crops because of too much sun - then it may be another solution.

    Consider that extreme weather has driven farming into hoop houses - which use an extraordinary amount of energy to keep warm or cool - why wouldn't producing green energy on-site not be a good idea? 

    Here is the information from the Webinar "Exploring Farming and Solar Synergies in Maryland" so you can judge for yourself:

    Video recording: https://youtu.be/BRYGY498gsU
    Chat log and registrant list (without contact information): https://bit.ly/2ZS2JRC
    Full paper and presentation slides: https://bit.ly/3ss6AkC

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    Andrew Stone
    CEO
    PACE Fund NM
    andrew@stone.com
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  • 10.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-26-2021 09:45 AM
    Precluding solar on food crop land raises the question of what is food crop land?  As a Midwesterner, much agricultural land is not food crop land (at least not directly so).  Is growing crops for fuel, or for inputs to other processes, food crop?  Because the crop can change year to year.  Soybeans for food one year, two years later its corn for ethanol.  The larger point is that in the Midwest, we are not running out of or lacking for land to produce food.  We have an abundance that will not be affected by solar development.  There is more land that goes in and out of production (CRP, fallow, etc) every year than would be consumed by solar development even with aggressive deployment.  And we can target less productive land to make that equation work even better.  On the east coast, farmland is getting scarce, and is threatened by development (mostly housing, but development nevertheless).  Local food capacity could be an issue.  But that is where the opportunities for co-location or integrated business models have the most potential to meet multiple goals.

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    Brian Ross
    Great Plains Institute
    Minneapolis MN
    bross@gpisd.net
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  • 11.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 02-27-2021 02:44 PM
    Hi All: The sun is every where, and so should be the solar arrays.  Even at 1 MW per 6 acres mentioned shows the potential. Small is beautiful, putting the solar inside the grid, at distribution level, close to the loads works best. Many small arrays do not mess with the distribution system, one may be cloud covered, the next not. There is an abundance of open, undeveloped land, farm or otherwise. Just look at Google Earth and your Plat Book in your neighborhood. At 1,300 kW-hours/m2/year solar in my small county, there is 10 x's the solar as the entire state of Michigan electric consumption, so a tiny portion is all that is needed. Think abundance. Transmission from the Great Plains is silly. We have all the transmission and distribution lines we need. Just need to get the clogged coal transmission arteries cleaned up. Go from the inside out. Make the sub-stations bi-directional. Harmonize the grid.

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    Steven Smiley
    President
    Smiley Energy
    smiley27@earthlink.net
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  • 12.  RE: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks

    Posted 03-01-2021 09:35 AM

    Limiting factors for food production differ

    The limiting factor for agriculture--food , fuel or fallow varies, depending on place and weather. The Midwest is mining their water for agriculture,  the East has plenty of water, and the limiting factor is land. The West has limited and expensive water, plenty of sun, but worsening weather 
    I prefer to see sun panels on spread out buildings, like our school buildings,  which our Montgomery county MD has bypassed, in favor of using protected ag reserves.
    Sent from my Galaxy