Harnessing the Power of the Sun

Right plant, right place. That favored principle of gardeners, which guides landscape design, applies to siting renewable energy installations like solar farms: Even “right power” needs to go in the “right place.”

Land trusts are stepping forward to help guide the design and siting of new solar facilities, recognizing that a rapid transition to renewable energy is vital to sustaining natural ecosystems and human communities. Drawing on their ecological expertise and negotiation skills, they are working to ensure that solar installations minimize disturbances to wildlife habitat, wetlands and productive agricultural areas.

Engagement with energy projects can be a natural step for organizations already committed to advocacy and policy work, but for some land trusts it represents a new — and not always comfortable — challenge.

“To help them become a voice for conservation in renewable power development, we created a guide, Reshaping the Energy Future, and a set of practical pointers for siting renewable power projects on conservation easement lands,” says Kelly Watkinson, manager of the Land Trust Alliance’s Land and Climate Program, which was funded by a generous $1 million catalyst grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in 2017.

Drawing on land trust experiences in New York, the guide holds lessons for land trusts nationwide. “In New York it’s no longer a question of if my land trust will be impacted by energy siting, but when,” says Meme Hanley, Alliance New York Program manager. “Reshaping the Energy Future offers land trusts of every size practical ways they can influence siting decisions.”

Complementing these resources are stories from the field, gathered here from land trusts working to accelerate renewable power adoption without compromising the integrity of place.

The accredited New Jersey Conservation Foundation first learned through a news story of a plan to clearcut 92 acres of pine barren woodlands for a theme park’s solar installation.

Michele Byers, NJ Conservation’s executive director, acknowledges that it’s “uncomfortable opposing a solar project,” but five years earlier, NJ Conservation had persuaded the state’s Board of Public Utilities to provide incentives for solar development on rooftops, parking lots and brownfields, guiding new installations away from productive farmland and sensitive ecosystems.

So upon news of the theme park plans, NJ Conservation joined forces with other groups and requested that the developer relocate the proposed panels to a carport over its expansive parking lots. “We got nowhere in negotiations,” Byers recalls, and the organizations shifted to litigation, a process that dragged out over several years. Finally, the prospect of expiring federal solar tax incentives helped push the company toward a settlement.

That agreement, now in effect, Byers characterizes as “a compromise, a much better outcome than it would have been otherwise” but not a conservation victory. The park will clearcut 40 acres, rather than 92, and the company has committed to donate a conservation easement on 150 acres of forested wetland. Solar panels will span three vast parking lots and additional acreage in what is to become the state’s largest net-metered solar project — supplying 98% of the theme park’s power.

Since the settlement, NJ Conservation has been working to support advancement of solar and other clean, renewable sources of energy and to strengthen state solar siting guidelines. It worked as part of a coalition to secure passage of landmark clean energy legislation last year that will bring offshore wind to New Jersey and expand solar energy, and then secured strong siting guidelines as part of the new Community Solar Pilot Program.

Byers sees value in resources like the Alliance’s new renewable energy guide. It makes no sense, she says, for “groups to be going it on their own, one at a time.”

Dave Clutter, executive director of the accredited Driftless Area Land Conservancy in Wisconsin, recalls vividly the day that his conservation director, Amy Alstad, came into his office with a strikingly simple question. Following months of work against a high-transmission energy corridor that would cross conserved lands, she asked, “What are we for?”

That question prompted the land trust to consider how it might “work proactively with solar installers,” Clutter says, and help easement holders develop larger solar systems — provided those installations were sited carefully and inter-planted with pollinator habitat.

Alstad is now at work on guidelines for solar developers, and is undertaking topographic analyses of the land trust’s service region to find the marginal croplands best suited for renewable energy sites.

Driftless is also exploring the possibility of creating an “energy district” — modeled after one in Iowa’s Winneshiek County — that could help build local momentum for an energy transition by offering energy audits, weatherization assistance and planning for small-scale renewable projects. “What’s very appealing to us as a land conservancy is the local ownership and local economic enhancement opportunities, given that it’s difficult for folks to make a living in southwest Wisconsin,” notes Chuck Tennessen, Driftless’s community organizer. “It might be just the right kind of fit for us.”

While Driftless is actively promoting these initiatives, it has chosen not to take a public stand on a newly approved solar project in its service region, a large installation that is the biggest project yet east of the Mississippi River. It would have no direct bearing on any conserved land, Clutter says, and “the board shied away from a formal endorsement so as not to complicate the power line issue.”

Questions of scale are taking on added significance in New York, which recently committed to get 70% of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2030 (known as 70 by ’30), the highest target for that date of any state. That ambitious goal will mean “building bigger megawatts,” both to accommodate increased energy use and replace electric generation now reliant on fossil fuels, says Audrey Friedrichsen, land use and environmental advocacy attorney with the accredited Scenic Hudson.

Land trusts, she adds, are caught in an “interesting position” simultaneously advocating for greater climate resilience while seeking to limit the impact that new facilities have on existing preserves, historic viewsheds and sensitive ecosystems. The driving question becomes, “How can we meet those two goals here?”

In March 2018, Scenic Hudson released a renewable energy siting guide at a “Solarsmart Hudson Valley” symposium with land trusts and solar developers. “Everyone agrees with the siting principles in concept,” Friedrichsen says, “but the devil is always in the details.” (Scenic Hudson’s guide inspired the Alliance to create its own.)

“Zoning for these projects is extremely difficult,” she notes, “so a second guide to help with that is due out this fall. Scenic Hudson is also advocating for a broader land-use planning effort to happen in conjunction with the 70 by ’30 buildout.”

The steady succession of floods, droughts, wildfires and invasive species symptomatic of climate disruption serve to reinforce a growing sense of urgency many people feel to facilitate a rapid and responsible energy transformation.

Stakeholders, including local and state governments and clean energy advocacy groups are exploring how to build a clean energy system, how to accelerate largescale solar and wind development while also preserving agricultural, ecological and other conservation resources. Land trusts are an increasingly important contributor to these efforts, helping to ensure that land conservation considerations are embedded into decision-making processes, that important natural areas are not developed and that environmental impacts are minimized. In addition, land trusts can work with stakeholders to identify places where siting is appropriate, including where conservation and renewable energy development can coexist.

When it comes to advancing solar power generation, Watkinson says, “Land trusts are looking for ways to say yes while keeping conservation top of mind.”

Solar installations can help farmers — already struggling with erratic weather — by providing back-up power and added income. Research is under way in Germany and Massachusetts on methods that would allow solar panels to coexist on productive agricultural land without diminishing much productivity. Dual use of productive lands could reduce competition for land, provide needed income and increase the site’s overall efficiency (up to 60% in a 2017 pilot done by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE). In the German study, panels were situated high enough over winter wheat and potatoes (7 to 16 feet) that farm machinery could pass underneath.

Under a new state incentive, Massachusetts farms have begun adopting “dual-use arrays,” so more data will become available on how elevated panels affect vegetable growing, cattle grazing and hay production. The dual-use panels are “being met with a combination of enthusiasm and skepticism” by the farming community, notes Zara Dowling, a research fellow with UMass Clean Energy Extension. Some farmers welcome the prospect of additional income, she says, while others want to see more research results before they’re convinced.