Penn State has launched a new tool that could make it easier for communities across Pennsylvania to navigate the local rules surrounding large solar projects.
The database brings thousands of ordinance provisions together in one place, offering a clearer view of how local governments across the state are approaching grid-scale solar.
Here's what to know
Roughly 4,900 ordinance records from 300 local governments in 57 Pennsylvania counties are now collected in Penn State's Pennsylvania Solar Ordinance Database, according to PA Environment Digest. The tool also lets users filter the material by several categories of local rules related to grid-scale solar.
Penn State says the platform is meant to be user-friendly, outlining the newly updated Pennsylvania guide for municipal officials on grid-scale solar development to help local leaders address common questions about solar projects and find additional information sources.
More background
The project was led by Professor Mohamed Rali Badissy, affiliate faculty at Penn State Dickinson Law; Michael Helbing, executive director of the Center for Energy Law and Policy; and Professor Hannah Wiseman of Penn State Dickinson Law and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and co-director of the Center for Energy Law and Policy, according to PA Environment Digest. Finn Burns and Sakshi Jain helped build and organize the database, along with a team of researchers who located and entered the ordinance data.
Local solar rules are often scattered across municipal codes, making them difficult to compare and even harder for smaller communities to evaluate when new projects are proposed.
The effort was financed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the center, and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant titled "Just Energy Transitions and Place," according to PA Environment Digest. The work was supported by DOE's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation through the R-STEP program. R-STEP is administered with support from a Partnership Intermediary Agreement established between the U.S. Department of Energy and ENERGYWERX.
What can be done?
Penn State says it plans to keep updating and broadening the database and is inviting users to share comments, suggestions, and corrections.
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