Transport, Energy and Climate Economics (TrEnCE) - Next session

Speaker : Charles Taylor - Harvard Kennedy School

Paper : Land Conservation and the Clean Energy Transition

Abstract : This paper examines the relationship between land conservation values, land use protections, and the development of wind and solar resources. We link a US nationwide dataset of renewable project proposals since 2000 to geospatial information on wetlands, critical habitats, and conservation easements. We estimate an empirical model of developers’ site selection and subsequent project progression, accounting for key economic factors such as revenue potential, land values, and transmission cost. We find that land use protections significantly reduce the likelihood of both entering the electricity interconnection queue and securing an interconnection agreement. In particular, proximity to conservation easements---a legal and tax structure that permanently restricts development on 40 million acres in the US---substantially lowers project success rates. A preliminary simulation suggests that while land protections have constrained development on sites with high conservation value, the net impact on overall investment cost has been modest.

Relevant information :

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