Most US Solar Projects Face Little Opposition, Study Finds
SkimNews Take
The perceived prevalence of solar project opposition may stem from the outsized media attention given to contentious cases, rather than reflecting the typical development experience.
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- University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers examined 686 utility-scale solar projects that came online between January 2022 and November 2023, finding 56% fell into "no" or "low" conflict categories while only 19% experienced high opposition.
- Juniper Katz, lead author and assistant professor of public policy at UMass Amherst, said the findings counter the media narrative: "All I saw in the news was conflict, conflict, conflict over solar."
- State-level permitting systems were associated with less conflict than local or hybrid review processes, though Katz cautioned the results don't prove state permitting is automatically superior.
- Larger solar projects were more likely to generate opposition, yet the political makeup of surrounding communities — measured by Democratic voter share — showed no statistically significant link to conflict levels, unlike earlier wind energy studies.
- The study, published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science, is the first to systematically examine the relationship between permitting structures and solar conflict nationwide, measuring opposition through news and social media posts containing terms like "protest," "lawsuit," and "opposition."
- The report arrives as US electricity demand climbs, driven in part by expanding data centers, with utilities and governments racing to add renewable generation.
Why it matters: The study is the first to systematically measure solar conflict at a national scale, and its core finding — that 56% of 686 projects face no or low opposition — directly contradicts the dominant media framing of constant solar fights. For utilities and policymakers racing to add renewable capacity amid surging electricity demand from data centers, the data suggests the real friction points are project size and local permitting structures, not the broad community resistance that headlines imply.
