Abstract
The rapid deployment of large numbers of utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants in the United States, combined with heightened expectations of future deployment, has raised concerns about land requirements and associated land-use impacts. Yet our understanding of the land requirements of utility-scale PV plants is outdated and depends in large part on a study published nearly a decade ago, while the utility-scale sector was still young. We provide updated estimates of utility-scale PVs power and energy densities based on empirical analysis of more than 90% of all utility-scale PV plants built in the United States through 2019. We use ArcGIS to draw polygons around satellite imagery of each plant within our sample and to calculate the area occupied by each polygon. When combined with plant metadata, these polygon areas allow us to calculate power (MW/acre) and energy (MWh/acre) density for each plant in the sample, and to analyze density trends over time, by fixed-tilt versus tracking plants, and by plant latitude and site irradiance. We find that the median power density increased by 52% for fixed-tilt plants and 43% for tracking plants from 2011 to 2019, while the median energy density increased by 33% for fixed-tilt and 25% for tracking plants over the same period. Those relying on the earlier benchmarks published nearly a decade ago are, thus, significantly overstating the land requirements of utility-scale PV.
Highlights
U TILITY-SCALE photovoltaic (PV) plants—defined here to include any ground-mounted plant larger than 5 MWAC of capacity—have quickly become the backbone of the solar industry in the United States
Based on empirical observations drawn from a large, nearly complete sample of utility-scale PV plants built in the United States through 2019, we find that both power and energy density have increased significantly over the past decade
Policymakers and regulators, and others who continue to rely on outdated benchmarks from the last comprehensive U.S.-based assessment of power and energy density conducted nearly a decade ago [6] will, significantly overstate the land requirements, and by extension perhaps the land-use impacts, of utility-scale PV
Summary
U TILITY-SCALE photovoltaic (PV) plants—defined here to include any ground-mounted plant larger than 5 MWAC of capacity—have quickly become the backbone of the solar industry in the United States. The first two utility-scale PV plants in the United States came online as recently as late 2007, but within just five years (by 2012), utility-scale PV had become the largest sector of the overall solar market (bigger than either the residential or commercial and industrial sectors), and by 2020, it contributed more than half of all solar generation in the United States [1]. This rapid growth is widely expected to continue, as Manuscript received October 18, 2021; revised November 22, 2021; accepted December 13, 2021. This concern has spurred productive research into areas such as “agrivoltaics” [4], which holds promise for mitigating the impacts of an expanding utility-scale PV sector on the availability and use of arable land in particular, by combining energy and food production
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