Solar Energy Suitability (2018)

This layer depicts suitability for solar energy development

Input data
Energy Zones Mapping Tool: Conventional utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) model with default parameters

The Energy Zones Mapping Tool is a free online mapping tool to identify potential energy resource areas and energy corridors in the United States. This tool allows users to run and interact with various energy resource models created by the Argonne National Laboratory. More details and methods for used to create the model are available here: https://ezmt.anl.gov/document/21/file

Conventional utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) systems convert solar energy directly to electricity with arrays of solar panels. The solar panels may be fixed, or they may be tracking collectors that tilt to face the position of the sun, either on a single axis or two. Larger systems are typically mounted on the ground. Screening factors for this model are based on a 1 MW plant on 5 acres, and include solar insolation, slope, land cover, population density, distance from transmission lines of at least 345 kV capacity, and two environmental screening layers (protected land and habitat)

Mapping steps
We ran the conventional utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) model with default parameters in the Energy Zones Mapping Tool. This produced a raster layer predicting solar suitability for the entire region covered by the model. Suitability is represented by a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is “Unsuitable” and 100 is “Suitable”. The legend below is used in a solar results example map in the final report:
 

Known issues
-- Some factors related to solar siting, like state and local policies, are not accounted for in this layer.