The solar support gap: Why do pro-solar citizens reject local projects?

Researchers from the University of Rhode Island explored why citizens who voiced pro-solar sentiments voted against a solar project development in a 2019 municipal referendum. Their analysis found objections over land use greatly outweigh proximity concerns.

April 16, 2026 Patrick Jowett

Cow grazing near solar panels

Image: Micha Sager on Unsplash

From pv magazine Global

Land use concerns outweigh proximity worries when it comes to local public support for new solar developments, new research suggests.

A research team at the University of Rhode Island used the example of a 2019 municipal referendum on a utility-scale solar proposal in the town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, to understand why citizens with pro-solar attitudes voted against the proposal. Their findings are presented in the research paper “Social gap at the ballot box: Using a municipal referendum to understand why general support for solar energy decline, available in the journal Energy Research & Social Science.”

The paper says the referendum came at a time when Rhode Island was “a couple years deep into grappling with the realities of utility-scale solar development.”

“Siting became highly contentious because most proposed and developed solar arrays were on forest and farm land, which resulted in a loss of ecosystem services and rural character,” the paper adds. “In many ways, North Kingstown can be seen as a microcosm of a larger debate because siting patterns and land use conflicts are similar elsewhere in the United States and around the world.”

In order to identify the existence of an individual support gap, defined as having pro-solar attitudes but voting no in the referendum, the research team developed and conducted an exit poll survey at polling locations, asking voters about their referendum vote, attitude to solar energy in general and standard demographics.

Corey Lang, professor of environmental and natural resource economics at the University of Rhode Island and corresponding author of the report, told pv magazine that to the team’s knowledge, this is the first paper to quantitatively assess the social gap at an individual level.

While the referendum passed relatively easily, with 66.5% approval, the researchers found that of the voters having pro-solar attitudes, 28.9% voted no and therefore exhibited an individual support gap.

“Key drivers of this behavior, in comparison to voters who support solar energy in general and in this specific project, are less trust in government, not believing in anthropogenic climate change and having only weakly positive attitudes about solar,” Lang explained.

“While this particular referendum passed, pro-solar attitudes are the norm in North Kingstown,” the research paper adds. “However, thinking about other locations with less positive solar attitudes, one can easily imagine how a 29% drop in approval could lead to a failed proposal.”

The team’s exit poll also included a survey experiment covering two hypothetical solar developments – an installation in a nearby town covering 20 acres of forested land and another proposing rooftop arrays in North Kingstown on school and municipal building rooftops – in order to determine how the land use and proximity of the array influences support levels.

“Our results suggest that land use concerns, deforestation, massively outweigh proximity concerns, suggesting that qualified support is two to three times larger of a determinant of support gap behavior than self-interest,” Lang said.

Lang added that while the specific quantitative findings of this research may not apply to every proposed solar project, the general findings would, pointing to other studies corroborating people’s concerns around deforestation and land use change.

“The support gap will always be there, so it will impact every project,” he explained. “It will always be there because supporting solar in general is very easy because it’s abstract. As soon as a project takes on specific characteristics, people will start objecting. That alone creates a support gap.”

Lang also told pv magazine that two key findings stand out when trying to minimize the support gap.

“First, establish trust with stakeholders and residents,” he said. “Second, select sites that do not require deforestation. Both factors greatly increase support and reduce the size of the support gap.”

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