AEE Canada East

Written and submitted by: Emily Key

Across Canada, solar farms are becoming a more common sight in Canadians’ everyday landscapes, especially in more rural areas. Western provinces, like Alberta, have been getting a lot of news attention in recent years for their ‘solar booms’. However, solar farm development has also been increasing in Atlantic Canada, especially in the province of Nova Scotia.

When I started my graduate studies in 2022 at Dalhousie University in Halifax, two interesting things were happening in Nova Scotia with regards to solar farm development: it was starting to happen, and people were starting to raise concerns.

During my second week of classes, my supervisor, Dr. Kate Sherren, sent me a CBC article written in the summer of 2022 about a group of residents in the Town of Mahone Bay taking the Town to court for its development of a community solar garden. At this point, I had no idea what a solar garden was or why it would upset nearby residents so much. Interested in learning more, I Googled solar gardens in Nova Scotia and came across another article written the same summer about residents in the Town of Antigonish expressing frustration for how the Town’s community solar garden was causing loss of forest cover and wildlife habitat. As I later found out, these were two of four community solar gardens in the province at the time.

As social science researchers with interest in peoples’ perceptions of landscape change and renewable energy, we were both keen to find out more about why larger-scale solar projects, like solar gardens (commonly known as “solar farms”), were upsetting to some people. As I thought about an approach for examining this issue through research, I realized three things:

1. The focus in the media, political discourse, and even among other social scientists seemed to be what people don’t like about solar farms, or if these projects should happen at all.
2. Public support for solar energy and large-scale solar infrastructure is generally quite high in Canada, as national surveys indicate (see studies by Sherren et at., 2019 and Donald et al., 2022).
3. It seemed that people tend to not like solar farms because of the impacts they have on landscapes, rather than because of a dislike for solar technology itself. Other factors can contribute to lack of support for renewable energy projects, such as lack of transparency and communication during project development. However, concern about landscape impacts seemed to be a theme among news articles covering resident opinions of solar farms in Nova Scotia.

With these three things in mind, I thought it would be interesting to ask regular people what ideas they do like for solar farms, specifically as they become more common in rural landscapes.

After much preparation and with guidance from Dr. Sherren and Dr. Dirk Oudes, a landscape architect and assistant professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, I carried out my study over the summer of 2023.

For this research, I interviewed at total of 18 residents from the communities of Berwick, Mahone Bay, and New Ross. Berwick was a case of ‘community support’ as it had a community solar garden that seemed to be well-supported by its residents; Mahone Bay was a case of ‘community opposition’; and New Ross was chosen as it did not have a solar farm. By using a research approach called the ‘Q-Methodology’, I was able identify shared views among residents about solar farms in rural landscapes.

Participating in the study involved two parts. First, each participant completed a card sorting activity to indicate their preferences for landscape change caused by solar farms. Each card had a different statement of opinion, such as: “Solar farms in rural Nova Scotia should be interplanted with food crops”. There were 40 cards in total, and the catch was that they all needed to be ranked against each other on a scale from most agree to least agree, causing participants to prioritize certain scenarios over others based on their own opinions of solar farms and rural landscapes. Next, participants answered a series of questions about whether they’ve noticed change in Nova Scotia’s rural landscapes, how they feel about such change (or lack of change), and why they chose to sort the cards in the way that they did. The data collected from this study allowed shared views to be identified.

These are three things I learned from this study that I think that anyone in the energy management industry in Nova Scotia could benefit from knowing:

1. Two types of views exist among rural Nova Scotians

From this study, I identified two distinct shared views: (1) solar farms should either be integrated and embraced in; or (2) isolated and hidden from everyday rural landscapes (i.e., landscapes where people live, work, or recreate daily). I call these views ‘Integrate and Embrace’ (View 1) and ‘Isolate and Hide’ (View 2).

According to View 1, solar farms are something to be proud of in rural areas and should be constructed in areas where people can regularly see and celebrate them. This view also supports the idea of combining solar farms with other land uses, such as agriculture, conservation of grassland habitats, and parking lots. However, participants who contributed to this view were generally hesitant about ideas like adding walking trails and other recreational features to solar farm sites, out of fear that people would harm the panels or themselves if left to be around them unsupervised. To alleviate this concern, some participants said that people should only interact with solar farms through supervised, guided tours.  

In contrast, View 2 represents support for hiding solar farms away from everyday sight by installing vegetative borders around them, or constructing them at the bottom of sloped terrain (i.e., hiding them from visual line of sight). This view believes that rural landscapes should have a ‘traditional’ rural aesthetic, and as such, should have limited built features that look ‘too modern’. Also, according to this view, solar farm development should prioritize panel coverage (i.e., install as many solar panels as possible on a site) to maximize electricity generation. Unlike View 1, View 2 represents disbelief that solar farms are compatible with other land uses (i.e., a solar farm should just be a solar farm). Overall, this view represents support for solar farms in rural areas, as long as they are hidden and separated from other activities. 

2. Harm to the local natural environment is a shared concern

It was found that there is a strong point of consensus between the views, which is that solar farm development should limit harm the local natural environment. Impacts to forest cover, wildlife corridors, wetlands, and waterways were a big concern among participants.

Interestingly, many participants were also wary about putting solar panels on bodies of water, like lakes, which has become more common with the advent of floatovoltaics (i.e., floating solar farms). For most participants, putting solar farms on lakes was not seen as a good thing because they were unsure how solar panels would impact the ecosystem of lakes, and how exposure to water would affect the lifespan of the panels.

3. There is a lack of knowledge of solar farms in Nova Scotia

For many participants, this study served as a learning opportunity about solar farms, as many were unfamiliar about the type of landscape impacts this type of energy infrastructure can actually have. Specifically, participants were generally unaware of the sensory impacts of solar farms (i.e., if they have a sound, emit heat, or reflect a glare). Many participants referred to their experiences with rooftop residential solar, which they admitted doesn’t seem to have a sound or emit heat, but these impacts could be a concern with bigger solar installations. Because of this lack of knowledge, most participants felt neutral about the sensory impacts of solar farms (i.e., they couldn’t express a true opinion due to lack of knowledge).

It is also worth noting that some participants were excited about the idea of combining solar with agriculture and other land uses but were unaware that this was even a possibility. For many, it was hard to imagine how solar panels could work with farming equipment and float on water without malfunctioning. Yet, despite these initial assumptions, many participants—especially those who contributed to View 1—were eager to learn more about the different possibilities that exist for designing solar farms.  

Takeaways and Recommendations

• The results of this study indicate the number and nature of views about solar farms in rural landscapes that exist among rural Nova Scotians, but not the prevalence of the views within the population (i.e., whether one view is more common than the other).

• Knowledge of these views can serve as important context for public consultation and engagement efforts as solar farm development continues in Nova Scotia.

• While solar farms are still relatively new in Nova Scotia, and in much of Atlantic Canada for that matter, it is a good time for public education about the real landscape impacts of solar farms. Getting facts out to the public early helps prevent the spread of both misinformation and disinformation about solar farms. Government and industry partnerships with non-profit groups are beneficial when providing public education about renewable energy impacts, as this approach can reduce the perception of political and industry biases influencing the type of information that is presented to people.

• Incorporating flexible standards for solar farms in land use by-laws that facilitate innovative design options may be beneficial in Nova Scotia. In other words, land use policy that allows combining other uses with solar farms may lead to greater community support for such development in certain places.

Ultimately, I hope the results of this study offer proactive insights for solar farm planning and development across landscapes of Nova Scotia. We all have biases, professional and personal, that shape our views, and the views we expect to hear from others. Taking time to understand where those views come from can lead to common understanding and foster excitement for new ideas and ways of doing things—even in cherished rural landscapes—that are better for people and the planet.