Solar power generation project land use indicators

How do energy systems measure land use?

Multiple researchers have attempted to quantify land use by energy systems; three frequently used metrics are: ecological footprint , land use intensity , and power density . First, their calculations, basic equations, data used and units are provided and strengths and weaknesses of each method are outlined.

How do you calculate solar generation based land use?

Without actual generation data from a given solar installation, the generation-based land use or land transformation can be calculated by multiplying the theoretical capacity by a given capacity factor (Equation 1).

Does land use for solar energy compete with other land uses?

Based on the spatially defined LUE of solar energy, as well as the identified potential for solar energy in urban areas, deserts and dry scrublands, land use for solar energy competes with other land uses through the inherent relative profitability of each land use.

Is solar energy a significant land use?

One concern regarding large-scale deployment of solar energy is its potentially significant land use. Estimates of land use in the existing literature are often based on simplified assumptions, including power plant configurations that do not reflect actual development practices to date.

What metric is used to measure solar energy production?

The most frequently used metric is utility-scale solar footprint with the unit m 2 /capita (Table 1, Figure 5). Most human population-based metrics that we identified in this study consider local energy demand, local irradiance and climatic conditions, and annual solar energy generation as a function of land area (Denholm and Margolis, 2008).

Does concentrating solar power land-use data system size matter?

Concentrating Solar Power Land-Use Data System size appears to have little impact on capacity-based land-use requirements. Figure D-1 and Figure D-2 show the total-area requirements for small and large PV systems, with respect to project capacity. No significant trends are observed for land use and system size for small or large PV systems.