WHY wouldn’t Solar Companies not want to put solar farms in real remote locations instead of in highly populated area’s? An example would be like in West Texas vs East Texas? Land is cheaper there.
My guess is the cost of transmission lines makes locating near a population or industry need makes sense.
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100% about the transmission lines and grid connectivity, which is generally near population centers of course.
Every mile could cost millions of dollars in terms of infrastructure costs and it makes many of these remote projects unfeasible unless they are massive
In Texas there are electrical grids all over the State. Many year’s ago a lot of Wind Farms were built in West and North Texas in very low populated area’s so transmission lines should not be a problem. Solar start up scammers are all over East Texas trying to “trick” land and mineral owners to signing leases. There solar farms greatly lower the value to surrounding real estate owners. Most do not have the money for the projects and want to “tie up” the land and mineral owners while they go try to find investors and get the Federal Government to put up the money.
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The mere existence of transmission lines owned by a utility does not entitle a third party solar operator to access those lines for transmission of electricity to its purchaser. Many of those lines are at capacity and serve local markets. A solar operator has to set up purchase contracts with the end-buyer or with a utility and then contract for use of adjacent transmission lines. Solar operators are generally not going to want to pay huge long-distance transmission rates from West Texas to a big city such as Dallas. Most often, the solar company will find a market, e.g. Dallas, and then contract with a transmission line already carrying to Dallas and find land adjacent to that line where it has the right to hook up. It is a long-term process. Some solar operators do it all. More often a company will set up the initial contracts and construction and sell the project to the ultimate Wall Street investor / operator. It is a multi-year process, such as 3 year initial contract; 1 year construction and 20-40 year operations. Landowners need to consider the experience of the company and be careful about rates and contract terms. This can be similar to negotiating oil and gas leases, to make sure that the landman is representing an oil company and will follow through, rather than trying to tie up a lease and never paying.
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