The Desert Solar Energy Dilemma

A few months back I was invited to a policy and technology forum at Stanford University, whose goal was figuring out how to overcome constraints to ramping up solar energy production in California. The forum brought together scientists, engineers, policy makers, and leaders of the solar industry and conservation organization to develop a “blueprint… to meet the challenges presented by the implementation of large scale solar.”

During discussions, industry leaders argued that the major impediment to solar energy production is securing financing for large solar farms, because environmental constraints--like endangered species and the permitting uncertainties they create--make investors nervous. They insisted that permitting needs to be streamlined--and that environmentalists and regulatory agencies need to make concessions.

The conservationists endorsed increased solar energy production, but not by sacrificing ecological values or natural areas in a mad rush to profit from the sun. Predictably, they advocated for smaller, distributed solar projects on rooftops, old agricultural fields, brownfields, and other areas of low ecological value, rather than huge solar farms in undisturbed desert habitats. This approach troubles “big solar” developers, because it forces them to deal with thousands of small parcels and individual landowners, at increased costs and decreased profits. They clearly prefer the efficiencies of dealing with a single landowner—the federal government—in undeveloped desert regions.

Now a new report released by the California Energy Commission provides broad scientific support for the approach advocated by conservation NGOs. The report, which I edited and coauthored with a dozen scientists, provides diverse scientific guidance to state and federal agencies preparing the California Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). DRECP is intended to streamline permitting for renewable energy projects in California’s deserts while also contributing to the conservation and recovery of desert ecosystems. The weight of scientific evidence shows that conserving desert ecosystems and recovering rare desert species will require first minimizing any new disturbance to desert natural areas, because they are already severely stressed by roads, urbanization, transmission lines, exotic species, dust pollution, groundwater depletion, and climate change, to name just a few factors.

The DRECP science advisory report has clearly pleased conservationists, but perhaps not the solar industry. Scientists cannot resolve the fundamental problem faced by the industry that siting developments on existing disturbed areas means dealing with many small landowners, which will drive up costs and complicate negotiations. Policy makers must therefore step up and create real incentives to help resolve this dilemma and guide solar developments to appropriate areas having little or no ecological value, despite the complications and reduced profits this may mean.