Contributed by James McWalter, Co-Founder & CEO of Paces
As the scramble to secure land for energy projects intensifies, one factor could revolutionize the project development industry and equalize competition among developers: speed.
Today, securing and permitting land for clean energy projects can be painfully slow, tedious, and expensive. Despite robust development efforts, less than 20% of these projects successfully connect to the power grid primarily due to interconnection costs and local permitting objections.
Take New York, for example. To reach the state’s ambitious goal of 20 GW of new renewable generation by 2030, an annual deployment of 2.8 GW is required. However, over the past five years, New York has only added 2.6 GW to the grid, averaging 0.5 GW per year. This means the state needs to increase its current rate of deployment by five times to meet its target, a challenge that is proving difficult to maintain and raising concerns about falling behind schedule.
If we want to hit climate, funding, and clean energy targets, we need to move quickly.
The clean energy land rush: few options, and they’re hard to find
Whether from state and federal clean energy targets, corporate climate goals, or the transition to EVs, demand and funding for clean energy projects are soaring. But each project has very specific land needs that significantly limit the number of viable parcels: space, elevation, topography, and proximity to interconnection infrastructure (the network of power lines and substations that tie the power plant to the grid), just to name a few.
For example, in Glenn County, California, a developer found that despite the county’s vast expanse of 1,327 square miles, only 295 acres across five properties were suitable for community solar development. This scarcity of viable land isn’t unique to Glenn County; it reflects a broader challenge in meeting ambitious renewable energy targets.
This challenge is leading to intense competition among projects, driving up land prices and shutting out smaller developers and community-based initiatives. The biggest companies will likely win because they can devote massive staff resources to the tedious process of finding and securing a diminishing resource and work faster than their competition. A level playing field is essential to promote innovation and contributions from smaller developers in the renewable energy sector, ultimately lowering costs and accelerating the transition to clean energy.
Complex permitting and regulations slow things down
We conducted an analysis to identify feasible land for community solar projects in New York, considering local permitting restrictions. The process began by locating 6,080 parcels of land, each at least 20 acres and within 0.2 miles of a distribution feeder with over 1 MW capacity. After removing parcels with poor “buildability” scores, the list was refined to 4,901 properties, totaling 201,964 acres.
There is enough land to support 3,366 MW of solar PV if permitting restrictions are ignored. However, after accounting for explicitly forbidden or uncertain zones, this number drops to 2,889 MW. Considering only areas where solar is explicitly allowed or likely allowed reduces it further to 909 MW. This means that to meet New York’s 2030 solar goals, only one-third of the required capacity can be supported by currently clear-permitted land.
Securing land is just the first hurdle. Our analysis indicates that much of the future growth in distributed solar will need to take place in areas with uncertain zoning restrictions – a process that usually requires intimate local policy knowledge and is traditionally evaluated manually by developers which takes months to analyze. Not only that, but places with the most grid capacity attract developers which often cause changes in local ordinances that are negative for renewable development.
Here, again, time is an expensive enemy because the legal right to use the land for renewables can change almost overnight. Abrupt changes in regulations can render land unusable, causing costly project delays or even cancellations. The longer it takes to assess regulatory hurdles and move through the multi-layer, unstandardized permitting process, the more expensive and riskier the project becomes.
Speed: the great clean energy equalizer
Technology has the potential to accelerate and streamline the entire process, equalizing clean energy development opportunities and increasing the number of successful projects. By using automation, software, and granular data, developers can proactively address potential roadblocks, prioritize the most promising locations quickly, and ultimately save time and avoid costly delays.
By consolidating environmental, geospatial, and proximity grid data, as well as permit and zoning requirements, platforms like Paces allow developers of any size to find land that fits their needs in minutes, not months. They get instant insight into land data, permit, and zoning requirements and can monitor policy changes in real-time, which is crucial as local and federal policies can change unexpectedly and even conflict with each other.
In essence, data software and AI innovation empower developers to work smarter, faster, and at scale, accelerating the development of renewable energy projects.
Moving quickly into a new era of opportunity
Mitigating climate change requires rapid deployment of clean, renewable electricity, but today’s development timelines are too slow, expensive, and cumbersome. By embracing data-driven solutions that streamline land acquisition and permitting, we can accelerate the deployment of renewable energy projects and ensure a cleaner, more sustainable future.
