Media coverage may be distorting how contentious solar energy development really is. A new national study finds that most large-scale projects move forward with minimal public opposition — and the real drivers of conflict may surprise you.
Solar energy headlines tend to feature angry town halls and legal battles, but a sweeping new study suggests that picture is far from complete. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst analyzed 686 large-scale solar facilities that came online between January 2022 and November 2023 and found that the majority of projects generated little to no public opposition.
The findings, published in Energy Research & Social Science, show that 56% of the examined projects fell into “no” or “low” conflict categories. Only 19% of projects were associated with high levels of conflict — a stark contrast to the impression created by news coverage of the sector.
What the Data Actually Shows
Lead author Juniper Katz, an assistant professor of public policy at UMass Amherst, launched the study after noticing a sharp gap between media narratives and available evidence.
“All I saw in the news was conflict, conflict, conflict over solar,” Katz said in a news release. “But there was really very little research that operationalized what conflict means and looked at it from a national scale to understand if the appearance of conflict was as prevalent as it seemed.”
To measure conflict, the research team — which also included UMass Amherst alumni Natalie Baillargeon and Alice Potapov — scoured news articles and social media posts for terms tied to public disputes, such as “protest,” “lawsuit” and “opposition.” That methodology made the study the first to systematically map the connection between permitting structures and solar conflict across the entire country.
Project size emerged as a meaningful predictor: larger installations were more likely to attract opposition. But several factors that researchers might have expected to matter did not. The share of Democratic voters surrounding a project site, for instance, showed no statistically significant relationship to conflict levels.
Permitting Structures Play a Surprising Role
One of the study’s more actionable findings involves how projects are approved. Solar facilities permitted through state-level review systems were linked to lower observed conflict compared with those handled by local or hybrid permitting processes.
Katz cautions, however, that this should not be read as a blanket endorsement of state oversight over community review. Rather, she says, it points to a need for deeper investigation into how different permitting frameworks shape public participation and ultimately determine whether projects succeed.
Solar Isn’t Wind: Why the Comparison Matters
The results also diverge in important ways from prior research on wind energy development, which tended to find that wealthier, whiter and more politically liberal communities were more likely to push back against nearby projects. No such consistent pattern emerged for solar.
Katz argues this distinction carries real implications for policy.
“We shouldn’t just assume that all renewable energy is the same in terms of how it gets from conception to build-out,” she said.
Why It Matters for Students and Young Professionals
The stakes here extend well beyond energy policy wonkery. Electricity demand is climbing sharply, driven in part by the explosive growth of AI infrastructure and data centers — technologies that college students use and, increasingly, build careers around. As utility bills rise alongside that demand, understanding what actually slows or accelerates the construction of new renewable capacity becomes a practical concern, not just an environmental one.
Katz underscores that grasping the real drivers of opposition to renewable projects will only grow more urgent as governments race to expand clean energy generation. For students interested in climate policy, urban planning, public administration, or even real estate development, this research offers a data-driven corrective to narratives that can make the clean energy transition seem more gridlocked than it is.