Expanding solar farms in Georgia to gain legislative control to protect fertile farmlands

Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River, containing eight million acres of prime agricultural land.

But concerns about the proliferation of solar farms consuming huge portions of the area with vast fields of solar panels are so much of a concern that the state Senate has established a study committee to study what can be done to save the most fertile land for farmers.

“Over the last 40 years, we have lost just over two and a half million acres of farmland,” said Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, who will serve as chairman of the Senate Study Committee on Preserving Georgian Farmlands. “We need to protect our farmlands.”

Other factors are playing a role in the rapid decline of agricultural land in Georgia, including the construction of housing developments to accommodate population growth, the construction of storage and distribution centers, and, more recently, data centers.

But over the last decade, solar projects have also popped up across the state, including some rooftop installations on individual homes and businesses, but mostly larger-scale “utility-scale” deployments of fields of solar panels called solar farms.

The industry operates according to two models. Farmers lease their land to solar companies, which build and operate solar farms for a set period of time. In other cases, a solar company owns the land and sells the power to utility companies.

For example, Nashville, Tennessee-based Silicon Ranch sells electricity generated from solar power plants it owns and operates to Green Power EMC, a renewable energy supplier to 38 Georgia member electric cooperatives. Green Power EMC has more than 40 solar projects for communities and utilities spread over approximately 10,000 acres.

As of last year, Georgia ranked seventh in the nation in total installed solar capacity, generating 5,936 megawatts, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. One megawatt of electricity is enough to power 750 homes. The 250 solar companies currently operating in Georgia have invested $6.5 billion and created 5,382 jobs.

Solar energy companies have found willing partners among Georgia farmers because they offer security in an agricultural industry plagued by uncertainty, said Jeff Clark, president of the Advanced Power Alliance, a clean energy industry trade association operating in Georgia and 10 other states.

“(Farmers) are dying because of large, corporate farms and over-regulation… of commodity prices and weather fluctuations,” he said. “For them, it is a chance to diversify and have a permanent source of income. … That’s why I think it’s really gaining momentum.

“This is a hard opportunity for farmers to turn down because the financial opportunity is so great that it could allow them to continue farming other parts of their property,” added Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council.

The disadvantage of the widespread use of photovoltaic farms is the huge amount of farmland they occupy.

“Southwest Georgia is largely prime farmland,” said Bryan Tolar, who served on the agriculture board before Bentley and now runs his own government affairs firm. “Will we take away the best farmland?”

Bentley said his main concern with solar farms is what happens to the land occupied by solar farms when the leases farmers have with solar companies expire, usually after 20 years.

“Did the land come back into production or was it left a mess?” he asked.

The General Assembly sought to address this issue this year by passing legislation requiring solar companies that lease property for solar farms to return the land to its natural state after the lease expires.

Restoration efforts include removing solar panel foundations from the ground to a depth of at least three feet, filling holes dug for solar panels, and removing cables and overhead power and communications lines.

House Bill 300, which goes into effect July 1, also requires companies to provide financial security at least equal to the estimated cost of removing the solar panels and restoring the property to its natural state.

“At the end of the solar project, the family reclaims the land and the project is removed,” Clark said.

The Senate Studies Committee will hold its first meeting next month in Statesboro, with subsequent meetings to be held in Cornelia and two locations in southwest Georgia that have not yet been selected. The panel is expected to present recommendations to the full Senate by December 1.

“We won’t have all the answers, but we hope to learn a lot more,” Hickman said. “It will probably be more about raising awareness about the need to protect farmland.”