More Power to Them: U.S. Large-Scale Solar Neighbors' Support for Additional Solar

Joseph Rand^1*Karl Hoesch²Robi Nilson¹Ben Hoen¹Sarah Mills³Douglas Bessette⁴Jacob White⁴

• ¹Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States
• ²School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
• ³Center for EmPowering Communities, Graham Sustainability Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
• ⁴Department of Community Sustainability, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States

Large-scale solar (LSS) electric capacity is expanding rapidly in the U.S., with over 18 GW added in 2023 and over 40 GW in 2024; high levels of LSS deployment are anticipated to continue in coming years to meet growing electricity demand. Such deployment relies on sustained support from host community members and local governments, but that support is not assured, with community opposition now a leading cause of LSS project delays and cancellations. We conducted a nationally representative, stratified random survey of LSS neighbors (living within 3 miles) in order to better understand factors correlated with sentiments about LSS and levels of support and opposition for additional LSS development among residents with direct lived experience. Overall, we find most LSS neighbors are neutral or supportive of additional LSS in or near their communities. While some objective measures – such as the size of the project nearest the respondent, the respondent’s education level, and whether they have solar on their own home – are important correlates with support, subjective sentiments and perceptions of respondents are much more informative. Perceptions about how LSS helps or hinders community quality of life, landscape aesthetics, residential property values, climate change, and community interests and priorities were especially salient. In addition, respondents’ familiarity with their local project was influential: seeing the project more frequently generally corresponded to lower support for additional LSS. Broadly, we find evidence to reject the NIMBY hypothesis, and, conversely, more evidence to support the relationship between LSS support and community values, identity, sense of place, and protection of that place.