PV-SuCCESS Will Create Decision-Making Framework for Ecosystem Services
A growing body of evidence demonstrates that solar projects can enhance community benefits and ecosystem services, offering host communities more than just energy production facilities. Habitat creation, improvement in water quality, and other stackable benefits on solar sites may mitigate negative community perceptions and provide other services like pollinator habitat, improved soil health, and carbon sequestration. Documenting host community ecosystem service benefits and creating a clear path for integrating the research findings into local and state decision-making processes would allow for proactive planning by both regulators and developers.
The Photovoltaics Supporting Cultural and Community EcoSystem Services (PV-SuCCESS) project will conduct field research and modeling and engage communities to create a decision-making framework and supporting tools to do the following:
- Fill gaps in the scientific record on solar-specific opportunities and risks to providing physical, biological, and chemical ecosystem services.
- Directly engage potential framework users in shaping the research, the form of the ecosystem services tool, and the implementation pathways.
- Examine ecosystem priorities across different types of host communities: tribal, underserved, energy transition, rural, and urban.
- Recognize the critical role of providing cultural services that overcome permitting barriers and explore mitigation opportunities that allow projects to proceed.
PV-SuCCESS will deploy a holistic ecosystem services framework for enhanced decision-making by industry, local and state authorities, and tribal communities in the Midwest. The project will specifically consider three ecosystem use cases that reflect different priorities and different ways of structuring the framework: priorities identified by local (host) communities, priorities of state agencies that have authority over energy or ecosystem standards, and priorities of tribal communities that are increasingly hosts for, partners in, or developers of solar energy projects.
