Elected state officials and state agency leaders play an essential role in balancing the need for the expansion of renewable energy, including solar, and the protection of important farmland. Below we have outlined important steps to develop workable policies for smarter solar siting programs. The most impactful state energy policies include significant stakeholder involvement, assess current energy supplies and future demand to understand the impacts of solar development, and provide clear goals and principles to guide state strategies.

Engage Stakeholders

Inviting broad representation of key stakeholders can help identify challenges and opportunities early-on in the process. Include municipal officials such as town planners, clean energy and climate advocates, conservation and other environmental organizations, land trusts, renewable energy/solar developers, environmental justice advocates, consumer or ratepayer advocates, utility representatives, state legislators, and state regulators. It’s also critical to include landowners, especially farmers and ranchers who may own a significant proportion of open land in the area. Involve conservation experts and professionals with a working knowledge of agriculture (e.g. USDA NRCS, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, State Department of Agriculture, Extension, and sustainable agriculture organizations).

1. NRCS List of State Offices
2. National Association of Conservation Districts Directory
3. National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Directory
4. Agricultural Cooperative Extension System Directory

Adopt Shared Values and Set Goals

Once you have involved important stakeholders, you can develop a list of shared values—basic principles that will guide future actions—and work together to create an aspirational vision of the future. This work lays the foundation for goal setting. Where visioning is big picture, goal setting is more specific. States often strive to set “SMART” goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-bound. Shared values, vision and goals will guide future policy development—the means of implementing and achieving the goals around solar siting.

1. High-level Guiding Principles for Solar Energy Development, American Farmland Trust
2. AFT Solar Siting Guidelines for Farmland

Collect Data and Conduct Analyses

Data can help drive good decision-making. Study the regional landscape for solar, including how much is being built and where. Some states have specific solar deployment targets. Some have existing GIS or other mapping of environmental areas, including core forests and critical habitats. A few key questions are: How much solar must be deployed to meet robust climate goals? How much “preferred” siting (including rooftops, brownfields, and other previously developed parcels) is available? How much agricultural and forest land is considered prime? Consider commissioning a renewable energy potential study that focuses on land use and the cost implications of various deployment scenarios. Collect data on an ongoing basis and share analytical resources developed by entities with specific expertise.

1. Meeting New England’s Solar Needs on Contaminated Sites and Rooftops
2. Measuring the Impact of Solar Siting and Design on Project Costs
3. Energy Information Administration State Profiles and Energy Estimates
4. Farmland, Forest, and Solar Land Use Scenarios, American Farmland Trust
5. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Energy Data Books

Explore State Policies

Learn about policies spurring and guiding solar development in your state and find out how policies that protect farmland consider solar development.

Renewable Energy Goals and Plans

Many states have created climate change goals that include targets for renewable energy, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, and de-carbonization. State climate and energy policies often incentivize solar development as a renewable energy source that does not emit GHGs. These policies and incentives can threaten productive farmland. Establishing goals can instead work to protect farmland with land use restrictions and siting incentives.

State renewable portfolio standards (RPS) mandate greater production of renewable energy by requiring retail suppliers of electricity to obtain an increasing percent of their supply from renewable sources by an identified year. Energy laws may also create incentives by setting special rates for the purchase of energy from desired projects. State energy plans guide state policies to meet future energy needs.

1. Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard Laws
2. U.S. Climate Alliance
3. NASEO Statewide Comprehensive Energy Plans

Energy Permitting Laws

State permitting policies describe the steps required to obtain approval to install solar arrays. Permitting policies differ from state-to-state and may require submission of a single application to a state siting board or separate approvals from state public utility commissions, interconnecting utilities, and municipal boards. Strategies to protect agricultural land in the context of state permitting include:

• Creating a role for state departments of agriculture in developing guidelines and reviewing and approving projects. In addition, it is important to ensure that permitting for agrivoltaics involves experts who can assess the project’s compatibility with agriculture.
• Requiring permitting authority to consider impacts on prime agricultural land. State definitions for categories of farmland may provide a basis for creating rules for solar development on different types of land. Consider assessing a land conversion fee for each acre of farmland lost to solar development to fund future farmland protection.
• Requiring plans to decommission projects and restore agricultural land and the funds to implement them. Provide statutory protection for underlying agricultural land that ensures it will remain zoned or protected as farmland after solar array decommissioning.
• Streamlining approval for projects based on size and location and expedite permitting for small or structure-mounted projects and require increased oversight of larger-scale arrays.

1. Farm and Energy Initiative: New England State Permitting Laws
2. New Hampshire Large Scale Solar Siting Law
3. Rhode Island Statewide Solar Energy Permit Regulations

Compensation for Solar Energy (Net Metering)

Net metering and other energy compensation programs offer special rates for renewable energy. These programs can be structured to incentivize certain features of arrays that are designed to work with agriculture, such as dual-use, arrays located on preferred sites, smaller arrays, or arrays serving priority populations. Compensation rules can be adjusted to minimize the negative impacts of solar development on farmland.

1. Farm and Energy Initiative: New England Net Metering Laws

Solar Siting and Farmland Protection

In general, farmland protection policies permit solar installations or treat them as an “agricultural use or infrastructure” when they are sized for on-farm use only and sited to avoid productive land. If a solar array generates excess energy for a commercial purpose and distributes the energy to primarily serve off-site users, it can be considered a separate commercial enterprise and may therefore be prohibited or ineligible for the protections and benefits offered to agricultural land.

Policymakers could consider whether solar installations are allowed and/or what scale could continue to continue to qualify for various farmland protection programs. Also consider only allowing solar that does not interfere with continued agricultural production in program eligibility requirements.

1. Solar Energy and Agriculture in Kentucky

Agricultural Districts

Agricultural district programs bundle benefits and protections to save land and support farm viability. The programs encourage landowners to form special agricultural areas in exchange for protection and incentives ranging from limits on annexation, eminent domain, and public facility and infrastructure siting to tax incentives and exemptions. Several states have authorized districts. A few states include restrictive agreements or covenants to protect agricultural land for a term of years. Because districts bundle restrictions and benefits, they differ from state-to-state and have varying strategies for solar.

Agricultural districts are enabled by state law and may have additional regulations at the local level. As such, it is important to understand the program’s framework in your state when considering the ways solar arrays can or cannot be incorporated on land located in an agricultural district. Rollback penalties and conversion penalties are common features of state agricultural district law; however, how states define and treat solar for purposes of property tax and agricultural exemption can and do vary.

1. Agricultural District Programs Fact Sheet
2. New York State Solar Guidebook: Solar Installations in Agricultural Lands
3. Solar Power and the Williamson Act White Paper (California)

Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement Programs

Some states offer programs that purchase agricultural conservation easements (PACE programs) from willing landowners to keep land available for agriculture. These programs often are administered by state departments of agriculture. ACEs are deed restrictions that protect agricultural land from development. They may limit subdivision, non-farm residential development and other uses that are inconsistent with commercial agriculture. They may limit the scale of solar installations to meet on-farm energy needs or may require an additional approval process to consider solar installations on a case-by-case basis. To find out what is permitted on protected farms in your state, check with the agency that implements the easement purchase program for relevant program regulations and/or easement provisions.

1. 2021 Status of State Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement Programs
2. List of State PACE Enabling Laws
3. New Jersey PACE Regulations – Solar Energy Generation on Preserved Farms
4. Massachusetts APR Program Guidelines – Requesting Approval to Construct a Ground Mounted Renewable Energy System

Right to Farm

Right-to-farm laws are designed to accomplish one or both of the following objectives: (1) to strengthen the legal position of farmers when neighbors sue them for private nuisance; and (2) to protect farmers from anti-nuisance ordinances and unreasonable controls on farming operations. Most laws include a number of additional protections.

Right to Farm protections may be extended to “on-farm solar” that is limited to serving the farm operation, but not extended to commercial-scale installations that are meant to serve off-site consumers.

New Jersey has issued regulations that outline specific requirements solar arrays on farmland must meet in order to receive the protection of its right to farm law. These regulations provide siting standards related to height, area, setback, screening, and more in an attempt to limit the impact on neighboring properties and soil productivity.

1. National Agricultural Law Center: States’ Right-to-Farm Statutes
2. New Jersey Administrative Code: Right to Farm and Solar
3. University of Michigan Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy Working Paper: The Right to Farm Energy: Can Existing Right-To-Farm Laws be Applied to Emerging Renewable Energy Developments?

Use Value Assessment

Use value assessment programs (also known as current use or differential assessment) are the most common form of real property tax relief. They assess property taxes based on the agricultural use of the land rather than its highest and best use, often resulting in lower property taxes. Enrollment in these programs usually requires the land to stay in active agricultural use.

Some states have passed laws and prepared guidelines for installing solar arrays on land enrolled in use value assessment programs. These regulations vary in how they approach adding solar to farmland. They might clearly establish that solar development is not permitted on enrolled land or may allow limited solar development based on the system’s size, land use footprint, the percentage of energy used by the farm, or on a case-by-case basis.

1. Vermont Solar Generating Facilities Constructed on Land Enrolled in the Current Use Program
2. Rhode Island Taxation of Farm, Forest, and Open Space Land (Current Use Withdrawal for Renewable Energy)
3. Michigan Policy for Allowing Commercial Solar Panel Development on PA 116 Lands
4. General Use Value Assessment State Statutes

Local officials can play an important role in balancing the need for the expansion of renewable energy, including solar, and the protection of important farmland. Below we have outlined steps to develop workable policies for smarter solar siting programs.

Plan for Compatibility

Engage Stakeholders

Inviting broad representation of key stakeholders can help identify challenges and opportunities early-on in the process. Involve executive bodies, planning boards, municipal and county planners, and local code officers/building inspectors; clean energy, environmental, economic development, social justice, and consumer advocates; land conservation and other environmental organizations; renewable energy/solar developers; and utility representatives. For communities without formal planning bodies, consult your state energy agency, state agriculture agency, board of public utilities, and the state solar industry trade associations (e.g. SEIA) to verify how large utility scale projects are to be reviewed and approved.

It’s also critical to include landowners, especially farmers and ranchers who may own a significant proportion of open land in the area. Involve conservation experts and professionals with a working knowledge of agriculture (e.g. USDA NRCS, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, State Department of Agriculture, Extension, and sustainable agriculture organizations). Also, involve local agricultural commissions, local farm bureau affiliates, and farmland protection boards.

Identify Shared Values and Establish a Vision and Goals

Once you have involved important stakeholders, you can develop a list of shared values–basic principles that will guide future actions—and work together to create an aspirational vision of the future. This work lays the foundation for goal setting. Where visioning is big picture, goal setting is more specific. Communities often strive to set “SMART” goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-bound. The community’s shared values, vision and goals will guide future policy development—the means of implementing and achieving the goals around solar siting.

1. High-level Guiding Principles for Solar Energy Development, American Farmland Trust
2. AFT Solar Siting Guidelines for Farmland

Collect Data and Conduct Analyses

Data can help drive good decision-making. Access publicly available project data and study the regional landscape for solar, including how much is being built and where. Within your community, inventory different land uses and estimate current and future local energy needs. How much solar must be deployed to meet targets mandated in state renewable portfolio standards? How much of the solar generated by projects will go to meeting local power needs versus transmission to satisfy regional electricity load? How much “preferred” siting (including rooftops, brownfields, and other previously developed parcels) is available? How much agricultural and forest land is considered prime? What are the drivers of local land use and farmland conversion trends?

1. Meeting New England’s Solar Needs on Contaminated Sites and Rooftops
2. Measuring the Impact of Solar Siting and Design on Project Costs
3. Energy Information Administration State Profiles and Energy Estimates
4. Farmland, Forest, and Solar Land Use Scenarios, American Farmland Trust
5. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Energy Data Books

Use Local Tools

Your local government can use its authority to plan and enact land use regulations, including zoning, to guide the development of solar arrays.

Comprehensive Plan

Solar development may be addressed in local comprehensive plans or energy plans, which assess a community’s past and current energy use, set future goals, and identify strategies to meet those goals. To expand solar development and protect important agricultural land, local planning bodies can incorporate the following principles into local plans:

• Balance the need for solar energy with other important land uses, including protecting forests, retaining working farmland, building affordable housing, and keeping environmentally sensitive land and key habitats in long-term conservation.
• Locate solar projects on previously impacted sites whenever possible, including brownfields, parking lots, rooftops, landfills, and sand and gravel pits, that have already been disturbed. Minimize solar development on greenfields, including farmland, forests, vulnerable habitat, and open space, and ensure that any land loss is mitigated. Create incentives to make preferred siting more attractive in practice than greenfields development.
• Support opportunities for farmers to keep farmland in use for crops or grazing while generating solar energy through dual-use solar systems.
• Prioritize projects that provide multiple benefits to community members and the environment.

1. APA: Are You Solar Ready?
2. APA: Planning for Utility-Scale Solar Energy Facilities (2019)
3. MAPC: Create a Local Energy Plan
4. ACEEE Local Energy Planning in Practice: A Review of Recent Experiences

Land Use Regulation

You may also address solar development using land use regulation, particularly zoning. The land use regulations should be tied to the plan and help implement its principles. For instance, zoning regulations can incorporate a purpose statement that declares the community’s intent to protect productive soils in addition to allowing for the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. They can also specify the conditions under which solar arrays can be placed on agricultural land, require configurations that use less land, and/or require siting on less productive soils. Regulations may have design standards to minimize impacts on neighboring properties. Finally, zoning regulations can mandate the creation of decommissioning plans that prescribe how solar arrays will be removed and sites restored. Communities may require developers to set aside a decommissioning bond as surety.

State agencies and nonprofit organizations have developed model solar siting ordinances to serve as a starting point as they develop their own regulations. 

1. Models for Local Solar Ordinances
2. Local Solar Energy System Ordinances
3. DSIRE: Database of Local Solar Permitting Laws and Regulations
4. AFT New York: Smart Solar Siting Principles and Examples of Land Use Laws that Support Renewable Energy While Protecting Farmland
5. Webinar: Designing Solar Land Use Laws that Protect Productive Farmland
6. Farm and Energy Initiative: Farmland Solar Policy Design Toolkit – Land Use & Energy Permitting
7. Balancing Solar Development and Farmland Protection: A Solar Siting Guide for Maine Towns

Advances in solar siting and array construction have created opportunities for farmers and landowners. Solar leases can generate additional income for landowners. Smaller projects can generate electricity for on-farm use, reducing operating costs. Solar panels can be sited on farm buildings and less productive land to ensure that they don’t conflict with agricultural production. Increasingly, “dual-use” designs allow solar and agriculture to be co-located. The following resources can help you learn more and decide if a solar array could support your operation while keeping your best land available for agriculture.

Explore On-farm Solar

Solar arrays vary in size and can serve different purposes. Small arrays can support on-farm energy needs, lower farm operating costs, and can more easily fit within a farm’s footprint. Larger solar arrays—shared by multiple community subscribers who receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced—may provide dependable lease income through a contract with a solar developer. This option may not be available to you. Large-scale projects typically are located near key infrastructure and developers proactively reach out to landowners in areas of interest.  Some states and utility companies have policies on net-metering, a program through which utility companies purchase excess electricity produced on the farm beyond what the farm uses.

Take time to consider your options and what works best for your land and/or your farm business. Plan carefully to protect the best and most productive farmland.

1. PV Options for Your Farm: An Overview 
2. Solar Leasing: A Guide for Agricultural Landowners in the Pacific Northwest
3. Information for Owners of Maine Farmland on Commercial Solar Development, Maine Farmland Trust 

Learn What is Allowed

Before you begin working with a solar developer, find out what is permitted on your property. Check with local land use officials to find out if solar development is a permitted use in your zoning district. In addition, find out if there are specific dimensional requirements like setbacks and maximum lot coverage. Some communities require site plan review.

In addition, if your land is protected by an agricultural conservation easement, talk to the easement holder (typically a land trust or local or state public farmland protection program) about whether the easement permits facilities/structures to generate energy. Agricultural conservation easements are deed restrictions landowners voluntarily place on their property to protect agricultural land from development. They may limit subdivision, non-farm residential development and other uses that are inconsistent with commercial agriculture. Agricultural conservation easements typically limit the scale of solar installations to meet on-farm energy needs. Some easements may prioritize the protection of productive agricultural land which could restrict the development of solar arrays.

Lastly, if your land is enrolled in your state’s property tax relief program for agricultural land, often referred to as current use assessment, check with your local assessor to find out if installing a solar array affects your eligibility.

1. Agricultural Stewardship Association Standards for Dual Use Solar Installations

Assess Your Energy Needs

If you are considering solar, conducting an energy audit will help you understand your farm’s current energy use and how that may change in the future.  Review the preliminary questions in the checklist below to get started. Many states have farm energy programs that offer technical assistance, including energy audits, to agricultural landowners.

1. Solar Checklist for Rhode Island Farmers
2. New England Farm Energy Collaborative

Evaluate Financial Implications

As you consider incorporating solar into your farm, be sure to look at the whole picture. Compare the cost of installing the necessary infrastructure to your anticipated energy savings and additional income if you lease land or generate excess energy. Also consider whether an installation will result in the loss of productive agricultural land. A new installation may impact your land’s eligibility for current use assessment, which could result in disenrollment and/or a withdrawal penalty. Incorporating a dual-use design can minimize farmland loss and may maintain current use assessment eligibility. Be sure you are prepared (and have legal support) to negotiate contract terms with solar developers, prepare appropriate lease agreements, and understand the financial implications of solar on property taxes.

Some states offer financial assistance programs for on-farm solar installations. These programs may be administered by state departments of energy and/or agriculture. Staff will be aware of applicable state programs. There may also be state and federal tax incentives and credits available for installing solar.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers funding to complete energy audits, provide renewable energy development assistance, make energy efficiency improvements, and install renewable energy systems. USDA Rural Development is a resource for renewable energy financing, including grants, guaranteed loans and payments.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is a federal program that provides financial and technical assistance to help plan and implement structural and management practices on eligible agricultural land. EQIP contracts address natural resource concerns and provide opportunities to improve soil, water, plant, animal, and air resources. EQIP is administered by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

There are tools that can help you estimate the net impact of different types of solar projects on your land and finances. Compare the costs and benefits of your farm without solar, with traditional solar, and with a dual-use system to balance the needs and goals of your farm operation. For smaller farms, use the Financial Modeling Tool below to assess financing and economic benefits of solar.

1. UConn On-Farm Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Considerations
2. New England Farm Energy Collaborative
3. NASDA
4. USDA Rural Development
5. Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)
6. Hyperion Systems Financial Modeling Tool for Farmers 

Implement Best On-Farm Siting Practices

Once you have considered the impacts of installing solar on your farm, the next step is determining where to place a solar installation on your property, how it will be designed, and how it will integrate into your farm’s operations. Becoming familiar with best on-farm siting practices will help you work with a solar developer or installer to plan the array. If you are considering solar, or have been approached by a solar developer, be sure to get the assistance and information you need to be fully informed.

1. Siting Solar Guidelines for Farmland, American Farmland Trust
2. VT Guide to Farm Friendly Solar
3. UMass Solar Location Considerations for Ground-Mounted Solar Photovoltaic Arrays
4. Farmers’ Guide to Going Solar, U.S. Department of Energy Website