New Berkeley Lab examine finds proof of relative decreases in dwelling sale costs inside 0.5 miles of large-scale photovoltaic initiatives in three of six states studied.
The development of large-scale photovoltaic initiatives (LSPVPs), outlined right here as ground-mounted photovoltaic technology services with a minimum of 1 megawatt (MW) of direct present technology capability, could be linked to numerous attainable native financial impacts, together with job creation, tax income, native landowner earnings, and modifications to dwelling sale costs to call just a few. Many of those financial impacts stay understudied and/or undiscovered; on this examine, we partly fill that hole by evaluating the impression of LSPVP improvement on dwelling sale costs.
The brand new Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Lab evaluation “Shedding mild on large-scale photo voltaic impacts: an evaluation of property values and proximity to photovoltaics throughout six U.S. states” compiles a novel dataset that features dwelling transactions and LSPVP footprints in California (CA), Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA), Minnesota (MN), New Jersey (NJ), and North Carolina (NC), which collectively account for over 50% of the put in MW capability of LSPVP within the U.S. Our evaluation contains over 1,500 LSPVPs and over 1.8 million dwelling sale transactions.
The examine, revealed in Vitality Coverage in open-access format, is on the market right here: https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/shedding-light-large-scale-solar. The authors will host a webinar overlaying the outcomes of the examine on March twenty second at 12 PM Japanese / 9 AM Pacific. Register right here: https://lbnl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7c4j1nGnRuKnvbYYmJrXyw (hyperlink is exterior)
Our evaluation finds that the consequences of large-scale photo voltaic initiatives on dwelling sale costs rely upon many components that aren’t uniform throughout all photo voltaic developments or throughout all states.
For houses inside 0.5 miles of a LSPVP in comparison with houses 2-4 miles away, we discovered a discount in dwelling sale costs in MN (4% discount), NC (5.8%), and NJ (5.6%) and no statistically important results within the different three states (CA, CT, and MA). Utilizing knowledge from all six states, we recognized a house sale worth discount of 1.5% for houses inside 0.5 miles of a LSPVP in comparison with houses 2-4 miles away. For the imply promoting worth in our pattern of roughly $400,000, a 1.5% diminution equates to roughly $6,000.
Sure cohorts of LSPVP initiatives have been discovered to have both increased or decrease sale worth results inside 0.5 miles than the sample-wide common, or no statistically important results in any respect inside that distance. These heterogeneous impacts and their implications are summarized in Determine 1 and mentioned briefly beneath.
Determine 1. Outcomes from base six-state mannequin in addition to every heterogeneity evaluation, exhibiting common dwelling worth results for cohorts of houses 0-0.5 miles away from nearest constructed LSPVP as in comparison with these 2-4 miles away. Vary of change in worth represents the ninety fifth % confidence interval.
Solely LSPVPs developed on beforehand agricultural land, LSPVPs close to houses in rural areas, and bigger LSPVPs have been discovered to be linked to antagonistic dwelling sale worth impacts inside 0.5 mile.
Once we account for the prior land use of LSPVPs, the inhabitants density within the space of the offered houses, and the dimensions of LSPVPs, we discover that antagonistic dwelling sale worth impacts are solely discovered to be statistically important for LSPVPs on beforehand agricultural land, houses in rural areas (low inhabitants density), and close to LSPVPs with an space bigger than the median space of LSPVPs in our dataset (roughly 12 acres, equating to between 4 and 7 megawatts).
We didn’t discover proof of statistically important results on dwelling sale costs close to LSPVP developed on greenfield, brownfield, and combined land use developments. Additional, houses in city (excessive inhabitants density) or city cluster (medium inhabitants density) areas will not be discovered to be impacted considerably. Lastly, we don’t discover results on sale costs for houses close to LSPVPs with an space smaller than the median space of LSPVPs in our dataset (12 acres).
A fuller understanding of the financial impacts of LSPVPs, and the reason for the impacts detected on this examine, would require a wide range of analysis strategies, websites, and scales.
This examine contributes to a rising physique of proof on the impacts of LSPVPs on residential dwelling sale costs, utilizing a novel dataset of LSPVP footprints and increasing the evaluation to geographies that haven’t, to our information, been studied earlier than. Though the evaluation supplies pretty exact measurements of correlations doubtless with little bias, figuring out the causation of those impacts is past the scope of this work. The evaluation didn’t embrace consideration of web site options or web site design, for instance setbacks or landscaping options, which might play a task in close by property valuation. Additional, the examine doesn’t look at the attitudes or sentiment of the neighboring communities, or of dwelling sellers and patrons, towards the LSPVPs, which might affect property valuations close to LSPVPs. Lastly, the examine didn’t look at broader financial impacts or advantages to host communities from large-scale photo voltaic initiatives, which could positively impression dwelling sale costs.
The heterogeneity of our outcomes additionally signifies the significance of place and project-specific assessments of LSPVP improvement and coverage practices. This heterogeneity could level to the significance of learning new siting methods for rural, giant, or agricultural installations – as an illustration, the co-location of agricultural land makes use of and photo voltaic improvement.
We thank the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Photo voltaic Vitality Applied sciences Workplace (hyperlink is exterior) for his or her assist of this work, in addition to the quite a few people and organizations who generously supplied knowledge, data and reviewed our examine.
Article and Graphs Courtesy of the Berkeley Labs, Electrical energy Markets & Coverage,
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