Federal study pins down the number of acres needed for solar power

[lobsterdmb]

FYI, since land used for solar power may compete for lands set aside for OHV activities.

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Federal study pins down the number of acres needed for solar power

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Monday, August 5, 2013

A new Energy Department report has confirmed how much land commercial-scale solar farms will need to power U.S. homes, a finding that could help policymakers weigh the environmental merits of renewable energy versus fossil fuels.

The study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., is consistent with what government scientists predicted years ago before large solar farms began cropping up across the country.
The NREL report found that a large photovoltaic (PV) plant that provides all the electricity for 1,000 homes would require 32 acres of land. That technology on average requires 3.7 acres per annual gigawatt-hour, the report said.

Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants -- which focus the sun's rays to heat a liquid that powers a turbine or heat engine -- require on average 3.5 acres per annual GWh.

"The numbers aren't good news or bad news," NREL scientist Paul Denholm said. "It's just that there was not an understanding of actual land-use requirements before this work."

The study is the first to look at land use from solar power plants that have actually been installed or are under construction.

As of late 2012, more than 2.1 GW of utility-scale solar had been installed in the United States, with another 4.6 GW under construction. The study looked at data from 72 percent of those projects.

"Having real data from a majority of the solar plants in the United States will help people make proper comparisons and informed decisions," said Sean Ong, who led the study along with Denholm and fellow NREL scientists Clinton Campbell, Robert Margolis and Garvin Heath.

The report comes as the Obama administration pursues an unprecedented expansion of wind and solar power on public lands in the West, an effort that has encountered resistance from some environmental groups concerned with projects' impacts on sensitive wildlife and migration corridors.

The Bureau of Land Management late last year completed a sweeping plan to encourage solar development in 17 zones covering 285,000 acres in the Southwest where environmental impacts are believed to be minimal (E&ENews PM, Oct. 12, 2012).
Critics of commercial-scale solar power have argued that the power source takes up far more land per unit of energy produced than a nuclear power plant, for example.

But comparisons are difficult, considering the indirect impacts of nuclear- and fossil fuel-powered plants, including the mining of uranium or coal or the drilling for natural gas.

A 2009 study by Vasilis Fthenakis and Hung Chul Kim of Columbia University found utility-scale photovoltaic in the U.S. Southwest affects less land than the average power plant using surface-mined coal on a life-cycle electricity-output basis, NREL said.

Previous NREL studies have found that solar energy would consume 0.6 percent of the U.S. landmass if used to meet 100 percent of the nation's electricity demand.

While solar energy is viewed as a key cog to slowing global climate change -- which threatens years of drought in the West -- its near-term impacts could include habitat fragmentation, wildlife mortality, roads, dust, water use and light pollution (Greenwire, Dec. 23, 2011).
As of earlier this year, BLM since 2009 had advanced 13 solar power projects and two wind farms covering 91,000 acres of federal land in California alone. If built, the solar projects would have the capacity to produce more than 4,800 megawatts of electricity.

President Obama in June set a goal of permitting an additional 10,000 MW of renewable energy by 2020 as part of a multipronged plan to combat global climate change.

NREL in 2009 published a similar report that looked at the land-use impacts of commercial wind farms.
But land-use comparisons between wind and solar are similarly difficult, since wind turbine foundations are small in comparison to the overall land they affect, not to mention the associated impacts to birds, bats and viewsheds.

 

[WB9YZU]

FYI, since land used for solar power may compete for lands set aside for OHV activities.

Nice post Johnny!

Huh. If the Government actually gave this a think...
There are how many roofs in the US? 100% are already non-permeable.
So if they would install a collector on every roof top in the US, they would more than meet their goal and make use of all that non-permeable roof space instead of covering land in solar panels.

 

[sandsgg]

^^^That makes way too much sense

 

[karstic]

The govt would have to take over energy production. Roof top solar takes the means of production out of the hands of the utility companies cutting into their profits.

Look at Google Earth and see how much roof top solar is in use over in Europe.

One trend that I'm seeing is the use of pv solar arrays as shades in parking lots.

 

[kastein]

Nice post Johnny!

Huh. If the Government actually gave this a think...
There are how many roofs in the US? 100% are already non-permeable.
So if they would install a collector on every roof top in the US, they would more than meet their goal and make use of all that non-permeable roof space instead of covering land in solar panels.

My dad is all about this. Actually, a couple years ago a company (nanosolar.com, iirc) figured out how to print solar panels on aluminum sheeting iirc, which would make for some excellent roofing.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

One trend that I'm seeing is the use of pv solar arrays as shades in parking lots.

there is a high school near my mom's house that put these in last year to save the school money. they shaded the whole parking lot and the tops of the covering is all solar panels.

 

[karstic]

Re: Re: Federal study pins down the number of acres needed for solar power

there is a high school near my mom's house that put these in last year to save the school money. they shaded the whole parking lot and the tops of the covering is all solar panels.

Fullerton did it at one of their libraries.