Reassessing Solar Power’s Contribution

Over the past few years, it seemed inevitable that solar energy would power the country’s future. Solar technology has dominated new electric power plant additions over the past decade, with government estimates consistently showing  renewables led by solar will provide 70% of generation by 2050. In fact, growth has been such that EIA predicts solar generation will surpass wind by the summer of 2026 to become the nation’s leading source of renewables generation.

But solar’s future looks far less certain than it did a year ago. According to an S&P Global analysis, cancellations of solar, battery and wind projects in independent system operators’ queues total 302 GW, far outpacing 90 GW additions of new thermal resources (such as natural gas-fired generation). The result means a decrease in regional reserve margins and cumulative capacities shrinking by as much as 80%. Hybrid projects (that is, solar plus battery storage) and wind have taken the hardest hit as the industry pivots to more conventional resources such as gas-fired generation. What’s more, recent FTI Consulting work suggests that half of the long-term potential renewable projects will never make it into the development queues for the next new-build cycle.

At first glance, the ideological whirlwind in the White House might appear to be the reason for this shift as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission orders reforms to the ISO queues, the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act limits tax credits and the Treasury evaluates opportunities to pull existing federal funding. But let’s be clear: Cost is not the driver for the reassessment of solar; solar power remains the cheapest and fastest form of electricity supply to respond to current shortages. Indeed, solar generation can be installed at a rate that is five times faster than all other new electricity sources combined and remains the lowest cost solution without subsidies. Wind and solar are cheaper to produce than many other types of electricity. The unsubsidized cost of wind power has dropped 66% since 2009, while the cost of unsubsidized solar has fallen 84%, according to an annual analysis by Lazard.

A recent analysis by USA TODAY found that around 15% of counties in the U.S. have some form of restriction on building new utility-scale solar energy projects. This includes outright bans, zoning restrictions, specialized land-use rules, or political stonewalls. From as early as 1995 through the end of 2023, Columbia Law School researchers counted 378 renewable energy projects that encountered significant opposition in 47 states. At least 395 local restrictions across 41 states, in addition to 19 state-level restrictions, are so severe that they effectively block renewable development in these areas. DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that more than one-third of proposed solar projects were cancelled because of “community opposition” or “local ordinances and zoning,” with grid interconnection another major deterrent.

Interestingly enough, resistance is growing in communities where very little development is occurring. This is likely blowback in response to the development that has already taken place and concerns about what the totality of future construction might look like. The rise in solar energy generation has been by far the fastest in the history of electricity, according to Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research.

That said, these projections are largely based on solar development taking place on lands that are largely unsuitable for any other purpose — meaning formerly contaminated lands such as Superfund sites, invasive species-impacted lands, and other types of non-vegetated land. In fact, contaminated land suitable for solar development could meet 80% of long-term requirements, if policy goals or guardrails (carrots and sticks, if you will) were aligned to bring this about. Ninety percent of projected deployment by 2050 is expected to be in rural communities. Approaches to mitigate local impacts or even enhance the value of land that hosts solar systems are critical.

To ensure the industry makes a hard pivot away from that trajectory, AFT as well as other national organizations including the American Farm Bureau Federation support policies that encourage the use of more marginal land or to assess a different tax credit value to those lands considered “prime.” In other words, AFBF wants policies that ensure development takes place on the acreage identified in the DOE study.

Simply put, solar development occurring on prime farmland has an outsized negative influence on community perspective. AFT recommends defined guardrails to avoid that conflict — specifically, that local government should consider adopting smart solar siting into local land-use decisions. The states could reinforce local rulemaking by identifying best practices for construction and decommissioning. Finally, the federal government could incentivize solar development on existing structures, brownfields, and marginal lands. Guardrails can guide solar development to where it has the least negative impact on land well-suited for farming, ensures that agricultural land where projects are sited can be farmed in the future, and promotes agrivoltaics solar projects to create opportunities for both farming and solar energy on the same land.

Farmers are facing lighter wallets as 2025 total crop receipts are projected to decrease $43 billion, a 15% drop from their peak in 2022. With input costs remaining elevated while crop cash receipts have decreased, farmers may need new revenue opportunities to offset leaner times ahead. Typically, solar leases can provide landowners with as much as two to three times the amount of income that could be achieved on the land by producing a crop. In Ohio, lease agreements range from $1,100 to $1,500 in eastern Ohio and as high as $2,700 in western Ohio. Sixty-nine percent of survey respondents to Purdue University’s Producer Survey indicated long-term lease rates of $1,000 per acre or more, up from just 27% in 2021.

Agrivoltaics, defined as shared solar-agriculture land use with crops, livestock production or pollinator habitats underneath solar panels or adjacent to solar panels, has also improved land use acceptance. The American Farm Bureau Federation now recommends prioritizing solar power on shared agricultural land or marginal and brownfield sites. Research is ongoing at land-grant universities to evaluate how grazing, including sheep and cattle, can allow ongoing agricultural use to be maintained during the project’s life. As farmers make lease agreements, it may be important to include optional terms that accommodate future understanding of these practices. Solar site construction can preserve soil integrity for future agricultural use by limiting grading and plant vegetation to retain soil structure.

Renewables paired with conservation and vegetation plans enhance soil health, improve water storage and filtration, sequester carbon, reduce erosion, preserve habitats, and lower local energy costs. In Minnesota, solar developers must write an Agricultural Impact Mitigation Plan to identify measures they will take to avoid, correct, or mitigate potential adverse impacts to agricultural land resulting from construction, operation, and decommissioning of the project.

Efforts to balance large-scale solar projects with land and community interests are more important than ever as energy demand grows alongside public sensitivity to projects. Slackened solar development may reduce land-use tensions but would also limit community and landowner benefits from these projects and lessen the flexibility in addressing generation shortfalls. According to EIA, complexity or supply chain constraints create long timelines for some technologies while solar is one of the fastest to deploy.