Fighting 'Solar Farm' Installation

[2manyrocks]

There is something about land growing grass, trees, livestock, or crops that's just more appealing than it being covered in asphalt or solar panels.

 

[TN8Man]

All installations I have been involved with are structurally engineered to meet wind loading and snow loading for the region they are installed. More secure than most structures built in prior years.

Wind ratings on the panels themselves vary from 130 to 160 mph depending on the brand. If panels are installed to local codes they are going to stay on thier mounts.
In Florida they are required to be rated for hurricane force winds in some juristictions

Only in 1.1 % of tornados (EF4 to EF5) would you need to be concerned with panels leaving thier mounting brackets, well unless they are not installed to code.

information below was copied and pasted from the attached link.
Across all of history, weak F/EF0 and F/EF1 tornadoes have comprised about 80 percent of all twisters. F/EF2 make up about 14 percent, F/EF3 roughly four percent, F/EF4 nearly one percent, and F/EF5 a miniscule 0.1 percent. As we saw in an examination of violent tornadoes, 63 percent of all fatalities have been caused by that one percent of F/EF4 and F/EF5 events.

Annual Tornadoes - ustornadoes.com

Well over 1,000 tornadoes of all sizes and strengths touch down across the country each year.

www.ustornadoes.com

Not playing down the danger of a tornado as the destruction can be devastating.

Just in the past few weeks we have seen devastating tornado damage across several states. With the increasing number of solar farms we probably will see soon what happens when a tornado rips through one. Looking at the severe damage caused just in the past few weeks I seriously doubt these solar panels will stay put no matter what wind ratings they have. When you have 50-100 acres of solar panels you could be looking at 2000 panels per acre or 100,000 to 200,000 panels.

 

[5030]

Actually around here, they put the panels on elevated metal pilings and the weeds grow under them and when the 'farm' has degraded to a point where it's no longer viable, the land owner is stuck with the remediation and remember, panels are considered hazardous waste under Federal EPA guidelines.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Our issue here (and why we successfully fought and won over a massive solar installation was), here in SE Michigan, the farm ground is very fertile and productive and a solar install would take X number of acres out of production. Real simple.

Never like the term 'solar farm' anyway. It's not a farm at all, it's an industrial installation. Companies that do that stuff like to use that term to make them seem palatable. Nothing more.

The Lord ain't making any more farm ground last time I checked.

Its nice to see that prime farm ground was not taken out of production.

The Solar installation near me is going to be about 160 Megawatts on 2000 acres of ground that is not prime farming land. Mostly rocks, sage, and a smaller percentage good tillable ground. One section (640 acres I believe) is DNR non productive/non agricultural land.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I am one of those that bought property next to me so I wouldn't have to deal with new land use issues. It's in CRP, makes me a farmer?

Just makes you a landowner.

 

[LD1]

Gotta wonder......the gov't really wants to push solar, and use my tax money to give out to people or companies to do such.....

.....But why is the roof tops of all our big gov't buildings covered in solar panels? Why is the white house, capitol building, pentagon, etc.....why are their roofs not totally blanketed in panels and have windmills on the south lawn?

 

[Mtsoxfan]

I'm seeing more and more towns either adding solar to their rooftops, or building a small "farm" to offset costs. Our former town could have saved even more money by installing heat pumps or geothermal, but townsfolks were afraid over "horror stories" they were reading online. Fear the unknown or uneducated/uninformed.

 

[LouNY]

I love all the different opinions here. The only one's that kind of get to me are NIMBY'ers.
So many of the ones making the most noise about cell phone towers and similar are the same ones that whine the most when their cell phone doesn't work. When I bought my place many years ago on the mountain behind me I could see 5 towers. One of them was an early cell phone tower. Over the years the trees have screened 2 of them put I can still see 3 out my kitchen window, but I don't even really notice them even when I see them, they are just their.
Without all the towers and power lines we sure as heck would not have the standard of life that we do.

 

[kenmbz]

We could use another cell tower here, but the cell companies can't find a good location.
They tried one a few miles away and after a decade, they decommissioned it leaving the base of the tower and most of the equipment shack on the owners property.

Seems they are stuck with it now...

Cleanup clause would be a worry.

As for the solar farm, trees, bushes and berms are really good at hiding them. We had one at a company I contracted with. They surrounded it with berms and put grass on them and bushes in front of them.
Unless you are pretty high up, you would not know whats back there.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Gotta wonder......the gov't really wants to push solar, and use my tax money to give out to people or companies to do such.....

.....But why is the roof tops of all our big gov't buildings covered in solar panels? Why is the white house, capitol building, pentagon, etc.....why are their roofs not totally blanketed in panels and have windmills on the south lawn?

As far as the windmills it just not a good location. Hot air is less dense than cold air, so there is less ability to make things move in the right direction.

Its kind of like density altitude on take off with my plane.