Studies have shown that land with renewable facilities sells for a higher price than land without renewable facilities. This is due to the guaranteed income provided by their respective wind turbines and solar panels. Learn More

Some land will be taken out of production for Wind and Solar. With wind, a small amount of land is needed for the base of the tower. More land is needed for the construction of an access road to allow trucks and cranes to construct and maintain this tower. Typically, one acre of land will be taken out of production per wind turbine.

Solar will remove a greater amount of land from production than wind but this has improved with technology. By using current, more efficient solar panels it is estimated that 10 acres of land will generate 1 MW of electricity. What this means for land owners is that they can lease a portion of their land to solar energy and continue to farm traditionally on the rest of the land.

In reality, very little farmland is needed for solar projects and only 0.6% of existing farmland would be required for solar farms to power 45% of the American grid.

Once a project is constructed, perennial vegetation is usually planted underneath the panels to stabilize soils and retain stormwater. Solar facilities can be decommissioned at the end of their life, with localities requiring developers to post bonds guaranteeing enough finance to cover decommissioning costs. Once equipment is removed and soil decompacted, the land can be used for traditional farming again.

• Wind and Solar Energy are Very Cost Effective: Increasingly across the world the cost of turbines and solar panels have become very economical. This is more so the case for the US as American companies are leading the way in building some of the largest solar panels manufacturing plants such as the First Solar plant in Ohio. Lazard, a leading global energy consultant, publishes an annual report on the cost of energy by various sources that has tracked the cost of energy as “dropping dramatically”. In fact, the 2023 report indicates that now wind and solar energy has beat methane gas power plants by a significant margin. This is despite the fact that the technology has still not reached maturity. This is one of the reasons that even oil and gas majors and utilities are now making huge investments in solar and wind energy due to the ability to make big profits with these projects.

Wind turbines will kill a small amount of birds per year. However, studies have shown that automobiles, house cats, and office buildings with glass windows kill substantially higher amounts of birds in comparison. The blades of a wind turbine rotate at roughly 40 miles per hour and birds can typically avoid moving objects of 70 miles per hour or lower.

Solar panels do not cause cancer. This has been investigated and debunked by several credible medical peer groups such as the World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health.

Prolonged exposure to electromagnetic Fields have been shown to cause cancer in humans.  However, solar panels emit extremely low levels of EMF radiation. Household appliances like your microwave will emit more EMF radiation than solar panels.

Solar energy is widely accepted as one of the safest forms of electricity generation. They are quiet, require few or no moving parts, and the silicon and glass based solar panels contain no hazardous waste. Beyond this, all utility-scale electric generation facilities are heavily regulated at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure that they are operating safely.

Solar farm developers often collaborate with local farmers, bee-keepers, sheep-herders, and their own experts to not only work with the local environment, but improve it!

In many cases, land beneath and surrounding solar panel arrays that was once used for row crops, which are turned over season after season, can be utilized for the reintroduction of native plants, wildflowers, and more. This creates a sustainable pollinator habitat that the birds and the bees can both thrive in.

In addition, when solar panels are paired with native grasses and pollinators, soil health and water run-off actually improves over time. This environment along with the reduction of pesticides and the churn of row crops season after season means that when the solar project is decommissioned years down the line, the land will return healthier than when the project started. All while providing clean and lower-cost energy to their community.

No, solar facilities only require minimal amounts of water during construction and operations. Once the projects are built, when solar arrays are built and managed properly with surrounding vegetation, they can actually be beneficial in conserving water. The arrays help with water retention and limit runoff after large rain events and studies have shown that sediment shifting is much less prevalent on land where solar panels are installed than on land being actively used for traditional farming.

Lithium Ion storage batteries do have a slight potential to catch on fire. However, the renewable energy industry is well aware of this risk and a good developer will have required due-diligence in place including, automatic fire extinguishing systems, 24-hour monitoring, and incombustible design elements, exploding batteries are a rare occurrence.