What kind of solar project is possible on my land?
What kind of solar project is possible on my land?
What grid interconnection is needed for solar?
Everything you need to know about how solar projects connect to the grid.
Your land could be suitable for different kinds of solar projects. Reach out to us for a free assessment on whether your land is suitable for solar.
The biggest factor to determine whether a solar project is possible is the grid interconnection. If you have perfectly suitable land but no grid connection, a solar plant on your land would never be able to sell the electricity it produces and so is impossible – unless you are planning an off-grid project for your own use, which are tiny compared to the kinds of projects that can create lease revenue for landowners. If you have land that isn’t perfect but has a good interconnection, chances are a project is still possible.
How do I determine what kind of grid interconnection my project would have?
You can start by examining what kind of power lines pass next to your land.
Is your land next to a transmission line?
Contact us so we can tell you everything about the power lines next to your land, and obtain offers to lease your land from developers if you are interested.
Most landowners would prefer not to have large, ugly transmission lines crossing their land. You (and your family if your land has been owned for generations) may have often looked at the nearby transmission lines as an eyesore. Would you prefer to own pristine land that is untouched by electrical infrastructure?
This farm in Iowa is untouched by electrical infrastructure.
Or would you rather have land with a large, 180-foot transmission line that greets you every morning, such as this one?
If you chose the land with the transmission line, you know how to spot a solar energy opportunity on rural land. Transmission lines are typically 765, 500, 345, 230 and 138 kV (kilovolts):
The electric power system has many pieces to it.
Various transmission and distribution lines that bring us the electric power we use.
In Texas and the Midwest, developers are ideally looking for large plots of land (more than 100 acres) that are next to transmission lines. These represent opportunities to install at least 30 MW of solar or ideally more than 100 MW, and justify investing in a new substation, which includes the transformers to step up the voltage from the low voltage at which solar panels generate electricity to the high voltage of the transmission line. In New York, Pennsylvania and other northeastern states that are more densely populated and have less open space than Texas, developers target smaller projects in the tens of megawatts.
However, transmission connected projects require a large investment in a substation, so they only make sense for larger projects. Even then, they could require a long time to obtain grid interconnection. In some states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois and other northeastern states, interconnection bottlenecks can mean that projects take up to 5 years before they obtain the right to interconnect and are ready to build. Even in Texas, the fastest place to develop solar projects, this process can take between 15 – 24 months. And this is all before we even start construction of the solar project, which adds another year.
Another disadvantage of transmission connected projects is that the interconnection study needed to obtain the right to connect a solar project to the grid is more expensive for larger projects at the transmission level, and can cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars – without any guarantee that a project can happen that recoups this investment. The developer needs to study the power flow within the grid and demonstrate to the authorities that under all circumstances, the new project will not destabilize the grid. Weather conditions, planned additional power assets, planned closures and consumer electrical demand are all factors that need to be considered in detail to complete an interconnection study.
Landowners don’t need to worry about the cost of these studies and permits. If your land is suitable for a solar project, the developer will be happy to invest in a permitting process and risk their money to secure the interconnection at your site, if they see a good possibility of success.
Large, transmission connected projects can yield enormous lease revenue. Some landowners we have worked with now earn around $200,000 - $400,000 per year for projects on several hundred acres. Previously, they were earning in the range of $100,000 from farming.
However, such projects are only possible near large transmission lines. Most landowners who want to lease their land for a solar project are not lucky enough to be able to host such large projects, but might still own suitable sites that earn them around $30,000 - $60,000 per year.
Sometimes, small is beautiful: Distribution
connected solar projects can be a win
If you own land that isn’t next to a transmission line, you should still reach out to us, since you may still have an opportunity to earn significant lease revenue through a solar project. Your land could be next to a suitable distribution level power line at anywhere from 2 kV to 33 kV. Such distributed generation projects (<10 MW) present many advantages compared to much larger transmission connected projects (>30 MW):
Lower investment in permitting à developer must risk less money when submitting an interconnection application
Higher success rate: it is much easier to study and apply for permits for a smaller scale project that affects only the local distribution grid, vs. a much larger, transmission connected project that will be influenced by everything that is happening all across the grid, and that will in its turn also have far reaching impacts on the grid. For example, it is more straightforward to determine the impact of a 5 MW distribution connected project, compared to assessing a 300 MW project that could move markets and affect power equipment very far from its location
Faster interconnection timeline: a distribution connected project needs to apply to the local utility, who in most cases will have an interconnection queue that lasts 6-12 months. A transmission connected project must apply to the ISO, for example PJM in Pennsylvania or SPP in Kansas, and get in the queue with all the larger projects cross the ISO – a process that takes years before the application is answered.
Lower budget: a distribution connected project is often the sweet spot, since it costs in the tens of millions or even less, and so is accessible to more investors. Larger investors might still be interested, since they can group several $20m projects together for a $100m check size, and still benefit from the faster timeline and risk diversification across various projects (compared to investing $100m into a single large project).
For the above reasons, many developers are targeting distribution sized projects. In Texas, such projects are normally sized at just marginally under 10 MWac, considered Distributed Generation by ERCOT. Such projects have an interconnection application process that depends on the local utility and does not require an application to the statewide ERCOT interconnection queue. In South Texas, for example, AEP is a utility that is a great partner for solar development, since interconnection applications only take 6 – 9 months. This means that if you are lucky enough to be the landowner of a suitable site, you could start earning lease revenue 6 months after signing the lease option, once the project is ready to build. For the developer, it can make sense to focus on building many smaller projects that are 10 MWac each and can be ready to build within 6 – 9 months, rather than look for the one big opportunity to build a giant transmission level project that can take many years before being ready to build.
In upstate New York, where land is less available than in Texas, solar developers are specifically targeting smaller projects (up to 5 MWac) since these avoid the transmission level interconnection queue. Although less space is available in the Northeast than in Texas and the Midwest, the concept is the same: developers are searching for opportunities for smaller projects that can connect at the distribution level, since these can be built faster and require the developer to risk less money for interconnection applications.
There are no transmission lines near me. What kind of power
lines are needed for a distribution connected solar project?
You can start by examining the power lines on the road leading to your property. Are they three-phase, such as the ones below that have 3 wires in parallel?
This power line could potentially allow a solar project to connect to it.
If the power line only has one or two wires like this one, it is likely to be single phase.
If your property is next to power lines that have three wires in parallel, you are in luck – you have a three-phase line that is a candidate for a solar project. The developers we work with will be eager to determine if this power line can be used to connect a solar plant to the grid.
If your property is more remote and only has a single-phase power line, it is not suitable for a solar project. Even if the power line in front of your property cannot be used to connect a solar plant to the grid, you should still reach out to us, since you might be close enough to a suitable power line that is not next to your property.
If you are near an electrical substation, it will be even easier and cheaper to connect a solar project to the grid, making your land even more attractive. Substations are owned by utilities and their purpose is to “step down” the high voltage electricity from the transmission lines to the medium or lower voltage electricity that feeds the distribution system that brings power to your house. When electricity is transmitted over long distances, losses are lower if this is done at high voltage, for example 230 kV. In order to step down the voltage to the medium voltage level that distributes power to neighborhoods, such as 11 kV, transformers are used, and these are housed in a substation. This is what a substation looks like:
Electrical substations such as this one in Texas can often accommodate extra connections to new solar projects at minimal cost.
I have a suitable power line or substation near my
land. How do I lease my land for a solar project?
Contact us to receive offers to lease your land from the top developers in your area.
The next step is to obtain an offer from a developer who sees potential in your land. You can understand how suitable your land is for a solar project based on a number of criteria, and submit a description of the available land to Telkes so that our network of developers can evaluate its potential and make you an offer to lease your land for attractive prices – around $500 - $750 per acre per year in Texas, and lease rates of up to $2000 per acre in New York, Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states where there is less space available for such projects.
Once you have negotiated a lease with the developer who makes the best offer, the first step the developer will take is to start an interconnection application.
How do interconnection applications for solar projects work?
In order to plan a solar project for a specific location, the utility that manages the electrical network needs to be sure that the new project will not create any problems for the electrical grid, by overwhelming the existing infrastructure when the sun shines, for example. This is done through power flow engineering studies that investigate what happens under any all scenarios of power consumption, by varying the following parameters:
Power Generation at various points in the grid, from the following sources (if they exist within the grid network being investigated):
Baseload power sources whose production is normally stable and has little variation: coal and nuclear power
Conventional power generators which can be dispatched based on the grid’s demand: gas and hydroelectric power plants
Renewable energy sources whose output is intermittent and depends on weather: solar and wind
Energy storage resources such as large batteries and pumped hydro. These can step in whenever the grid needs them to maintain stability.
Power Consumption or Load at various points in the grid, depending on:
Hour of the day: electricity demand depends on
Seasonal changes that consider varying heating, cooling and industrial power demand
The power flow studies that are part of the interconnection application must convincingly demonstrate that the proposed solar project will not destabilize the grid, and that under all circumstances, the solar project will contribute positively to the power generation mix.
How long do interconnection applications take until a decision is made?
In Texas, transmission level interconnection applications to ERCOT take between 15 – 24 months. Applications for smaller, distribution level can take between 6 – 9 months, but this varies depending on the local utility.
During this period, a lot of other things are happening to make the project possible, but the focus here is on grid interconnection, because this is the key limiting factor that determines the timing of the project and how quickly it can reach ready to build.
Contact us to learn more about solar energy.
Tell us about your land, so that energy developers can propose a solar project on your plot. Make money from your land and make the world more sustainable.
