As large-scale solar becomes a bigger part of our landscape, it’s crucial to make informed decisions on how to best deploy it with the needs of host communities in mind. The US Department of Energy-funded PhotoVoltaics Supporting Cultural and Community EcoSystem Services (PV-SuCCESS) project aims to achieve just that.
The goal of PV-SuCCESS is to develop a decision-making framework to help developers, host communities, and local and state regulators incorporate community ecosystem service benefits, such as water and soil quality improvement, and carbon sequestration, into large-scale solar deployment.
In collaboration with our partners—University of Minnesota, Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association (MTERA), Minnesota Department of Commerce, Argonne National Laboratory, and Xcel Energy—GPI has been facilitating the PV-SuCCESS project.
PV-SuCCESS builds on the previous outcomes from the Photovoltaic Stormwater Management Research and Testing (PV-SMaRT) project and has been in development since 2023.
To create a decision-making framework, the project has been guided by three research teams:
- A field research team collecting physical, chemical, and biological field data at solar facility sites.
- A sociocultural research team investigating and documenting the priorities of communities regarding cultural ecosystem services and solar development.
- A framework team developing robust guidance to measure the ecosystem co-benefit potential of solar development.
In this post, project partners share the latest PV-SuCCESS updates and what’s next for the work ahead.
PV-SuCCESS field research update
In 2024, the field research team installed long-term soil moisture monitoring equipment at six solar facility sites across Minnesota and New York. The research at the six sites will aid understanding of what happens to soil health when paired with large-scale solar and enable data collection that will help evaluate solar development options in site selection and design.
This equipment has been used to assess soil infiltration and surface water runoff interactions. Extensive physical and chemical field data were collected at all sites in the fall of 2024.
When selecting the sites to study over three years, the team chose a variety of soil types to diversify the pool. Most PV-SuCCESS sites have been previously studied in other projects—as early as 2020—providing the team with extended data periods.
“Two out of six sites we are currently studying—in Ithaca, New York, and Ramsey, Minnesota—were part of the PV-SMaRT project, giving us a broader picture of long-term infiltration and runoff interactions. Three of the other sites also have several years of field data,” said Jake Galzki, research professional at the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate at the University of Minnesota. He also shared that two more sites, one in Iowa and one in Wisconsin, have been recently added to the project.
Each PV-SuCCESS site is visited regularly for monitoring and data collection. Soil health metrics are sampled annually, and soil moisture is continuously tracked throughout the growing season.
“We’ve performed extensive soil sampling at each site, and the first snapshots of data so far indicate soil health that is expected for agricultural soils,” said Galzki. “Over time, we hope to see how solar paired with perennial vegetation influences long-term soil health.”
One of the soil properties the team tracks is organic matter, which serves as an early indicator of soil health. Promisingly, all sites currently show organic matter levels that exceed the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s estimates for the specific soil types at each site. Galzki noted that, in general, soils with perennial groundcover tend to increase soil organic matter over time, resulting in healthier soils.
The history of land use also plays a role in soil health. Most sites were previously used for annually cultivated crops, which can be associated with practices that leave the soil more vulnerable to erosion and degradation. The exception is the New York site, which had established perennial vegetation before the project began.
Another focus is nitrate levels in groundwater, which is a concern in soils with high fertilizer use. Groundwater nitrate levels at most PV-SuCCESS sites in Minnesota are below what would normally be seen in annually cultivated land use, likely due to the absence of active fertilization in recent years. However, one site has higher nitrate levels, and the team is investigating the potential reasons behind that.
As the field research progresses, the team is eager to compare data snapshots down the road. Ongoing feedback from the project’s technical committee is also being incorporated to inform and update the data collection process.
“It will be really interesting to see how soil health metrics develop in years two and three, especially as the perennial vegetation continues to develop,” Galzki said.
PV-SuCCESS sociocultural research update
The PV-SuCCESS sociocultural research team has been working closely with communities across Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois to better understand the priorities and perceptions of large-scale solar development.
So far, the team has engaged communities through surveys, interviews, and workshops and is looking to do more for the remainder of this year.
“We’ve done the first batch of surveys and interviews, alongside two workshops so far, and have several scheduled for later this summer,” shared Melissa Birch, Clean Energy Resource Teams co-director. “We’re also definitely looking to do more surveys and interviews.”
One key insight from these engagements is that community members are generally not opposed to solar energy—many are curious and eager to learn more.
“So far, we’ve found that people are often very curious about solar and interested in having more information on the impact of solar on the landscape in their communities,” said Birch.
Some common themes that have come up are a strong desire to ensure that the agricultural nature of the community and the economy are respected, especially in agricultural areas. There is also interest in water quality and wildlife protection. In addition, Birch identified transparency in the solar development process and emphasis on local benefits as major takeaways.
“It’s really important to recognize that these are people’s homes and communities and that solar projects are planned with that in mind,” said Birch.
There’s also growing curiosity about the potential for agrivoltaics (simultaneously using land for both agriculture and solar) and a strong interest in using the tools that will eventually come out of PV-SuCCESS.
“One of the things requested in the workshops was sharing the framework back with them once it was developed,” noted Birch.
With the next wave of surveys and interviews, the team hopes to deepen their understanding of what communities care about regarding large-scale solar. Ultimately, the findings of this research will help to ensure that solar projects meet local community needs.
Tribal perspective in PV-SuCCESS
As mentioned above, one of the goals of PV-SuCCESS is to understand the ecosystem priorities across different types of host communities, including tribal communities. As Daniel Wiggins Jr., the executive director of the Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association (MTERA), explained, MTERA’s role is to moderate the relationship between the PV-SuCCESS project and the Midwest tribes.
“The biggest thing is that tribal values, alongside environmental concerns, are considered,” shared Wiggins. “It’s important that this collaboration ensures that tribal concerns are both heard and integrated into the development of the framework.”
Through community engagement and early cultural research, PV-SuCCESS has found shared concerns—like protecting drinking water, supporting soil health, and safeguarding people’s livelihoods—across tribal, rural, and urban communities.
“The order of priorities for us might be different based on tribal values, but those concerns definitely resonate within our communities,” Wiggins noted.
What makes PV-SuCCESS stand out, according to Wiggins, is how it brings together a wide range of community stakeholders: “There is the tribal aspect, which MTERA leads, but there are also municipal perspectives. I think it’s important to see common ground through projects like PV-SuCCESS and meet people where they are.”
Looking ahead, Wiggins emphasized the opportunity to use the tools developed through the project to guide tribal communities in creating multi-use solar projects that align with their values. Rather than viewing solar strictly through the lens of energy production, many tribes would benefit from additional uses for the land.
“With tribes, leaning into just one aspect of land use is counterintuitive to how tribal people think,” he said. “Highlighting that you can put edible and medicinal plants under solar panels, for example, creates additional exposure to the solar industry and the variety of ecosystem benefits the soil under solar panels can offer.”
PV-SuCCESS framework development update
Another PV-SuCCESS team is developing an integrative ecosystem services framework that will provide guidance on how to measure the ecosystem co-benefit potential of solar.
Nathaniel Springer, research scientist in Economics and Sustainability at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, said that since this project grew out of PV-SMaRT, the team had a sense of what people might need and began by reviewing already existing ecosystem services tools.
“We’re building on existing tools and asking how we can go further—how we can help people make better, more informed decisions,” Springer said. “A lot of what was out there was focused on scientific literature. Some tools were more policy-driven, like decision trees that help people make choices more clearly. We also saw calculators and other tools that help people meet policy and regulatory requirements.”
After compiling their findings into a brief, the team began asking stakeholders what tools they’d want to use. That outreach is already shaping the direction of the framework.
“I think the most useful feedback we’ve gotten is that people like things they can interact with,” he said. “So, we’re leaning toward a mapping-style framework. We’ve created similar tools before and have a good idea of what it could look like.”
Currently, the team is building the first version of the framework to which stakeholders can respond: “We’re at the stage where we not only need a kind of demo, but we also need to continue these conversations in a less abstract way,” Springer said.
The framework is being designed to be flexible and evolve over time: “Really, it’s a set of tools—the framework holds all the tools together,” Springer noted. Having something flexible will allow the team to build a good interim version, which will continue to be developed as the project goes on.
The team aims to release an interim version of the framework by the end of this year, intending it to be open-source and accessible. Springer said that anything that the team makes will be open to everyone.
The vision for now is to create something that serves immediate needs while continuing to improve with stakeholder feedback.
“We also hope this becomes something that’s eventually community-led—or even becomes an inspiration for something bigger,” Springer said.
PV-SuCCESS work continues
As the PV-SuCCESS work continues, the three teams are building on early progress to deepen their research with a shared goal in mind: creating an effective decision-making framework for community ecosystem service benefits.
“If we want to reach our solar deployment goals, we have to engage the host communities in partnership,” said Brian Ross, vice president of Renewable Energy and interim vice president of Communities at GPI. “And that’s what PV-SuCCESS is all about—creating partnerships that lead to better outcomes for all.”
Read more about the PV-SuCCESS project on its web page. Stay up to date with our work by signing up for our newsletter.
