“Here comes the sun”: Determinants of solar farm planning at local authority level in England

Abstract

This article aims to better understand the factors influencing whether solar farm applications at local authority level in England are approved or rejected, defined as planning success. Previous research has focused on the micro-dynamics of renewable energy acceptance, but systematic research exploring the factors of renewable deployment with large N data is outstanding. We study the meso-level investigating the impact of actors and context on the approval of ground-mounted solar photovoltaic applications. The analyses rely on the Renewable Energy Planning Database provided by the United Kingdom's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and planning officer reports. Logistic regressions allow us to predict under what circumstances solar farm proposals in England are successful by local authorities. Our results suggest that only some actors matter: solar farm planning success seems to rely on recommendations of actors with institutional power and members of the public rather than advocacy groups. However, context also plays an important role, in particular, surrounding landscapes and planning guidelines. Robustness checks using Coarsened Exact Matching lend further confidence in our results. This implies that policymakers should address definitional and pragmatic issues that hinder the decision-making process in solar planning. This may encourage all stakeholders to employ different communication strategies in the future.