The solar boom is here. According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, solar energy prices have fallen over 70 percent in the past decade. New solar installations have grown almost exponentially in that time, and they’re going to have to keep growing even faster to meet climate goals.
But all of that growth is going to take up a lot of space. Princeton University’s Net Zero America study estimated that the area taken up by ground-mounted solar panels in the United States will have to increase by nine million acres by 2050 to reach carbon neutrality. And that means that what’s going in with the land underneath the panels, which solar companies typically haven’t given much thought to, is starting to get more attention.
Over the past few years, solar farm developers have increasingly been encouraged to transform the space underneath their solar panels into a safe haven for bees, butterflies and other endangered pollinators.
When done right, pollinator-friendly solar farms can do much more for the environment than just generating clean energy. They can create biodiverse habitats that improve the soil, sequester carbon and potentially benefit nearby agriculture. “These solar farms can have a valuable impact on everything that’s going on in the landscape,” says Matthew O’Neal, an entomologist at Iowa State University and co-author of a recent paper discussing how solar farms can contribute to pollinator conservation.
