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).
NRCS List of State Offices
National Association of Conservation Districts Directory
National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Directory
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.
High-level Guiding Principles for Solar Energy Development, American Farmland Trust
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.
Meeting New England’s Solar Needs on Contaminated Sites and Rooftops
Measuring the Impact of Solar Siting and Design on Project Costs
Energy Information Administration State Profiles and Energy Estimates
Farmland, Forest, and Solar Land Use Scenarios, American Farmland Trust
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.
Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard Laws
U.S. Climate Alliance
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.
Farm and Energy Initiative: New England State Permitting Laws
New Hampshire Large Scale Solar Siting Law
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.
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.
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.
Agricultural District Programs Fact Sheet
New York State Solar Guidebook: Solar Installations in Agricultural Lands
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.
2021 Status of State Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement Programs
List of State PACE Enabling Laws
New Jersey PACE Regulations – Solar Energy Generation on Preserved Farms
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.
National Agricultural Law Center: States’ Right-to-Farm Statutes
New Jersey Administrative Code: Right to Farm and Solar
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.
Vermont Solar Generating Facilities Constructed on Land Enrolled in the Current Use Program
Rhode Island Taxation of Farm, Forest, and Open Space Land (Current Use Withdrawal for Renewable Energy)
Michigan Policy for Allowing Commercial Solar Panel Development on PA 116 Lands
General Use Value Assessment State Statutes