Low-conflict strategies for getting to gigawatt-scale renewable deployment

Achieving net zero emissions by midcentury in the US will require a daunting pace of clean and renewable energy deployment, accelerating to 6-8 times the current rate of project development and amounting to land area requirements equivalent to that of California for just onshore wind and solar development alone. Generation and transmission land use and siting related conflicts have emerged as a formidable barrier to scaling up renewables. This talk will explore the scale of infrastructure development needed to achieve decarbonization goals in the US and the role of land-sparing and low-conflict strategies for wind and solar development. The talk will present results from recent projects that examine the scalability of agrivoltaics, the dual use of land for solar energy production and agriculture, and the co-location of onshore wind and solar PV projects.

Speaker: Grace Wu, UC Santa Barbara