Solar Facilities

Three utility-scale solar facilities totaling over 10,000 acres have been approved or are pending approval in Yavapai County. This includes Project 1874, the 1,116-acre 95 MW (megawatt) solar farm located south of Highway 89A east of Fain Road approved by the County Board of Supervisors on January 6, 2021 as reported by The Daily Courier and the Associated Press.

In Arizona, only transmission lines, once they are connected, are regulated by the Corporation Commission. Cities, towns, and counties are left to determine appropriate land use, location, size, monitoring, and decommissioning requirements for utility-scale solar facilities.  

As a result, the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors drafted an amendment, adding Section 608 Solar Facilities, to its Zoning Ordinance.

The purpose of Section 608 is to establish "processes, requirements and performance standards for the placing, design, construction, operation, monitoring, modification, and removal of UtilityScale Solar Facilities."

The Board of Supervisors approved the ordinance amendment by a vote of 4 to 1 at their November 6, 2024, meeting/public hearing.

Social and Environmental Impacts

Solar energy plays an important role in decarbonization, but also presents negative envornomental and social impacts which must be taken into consideration when local ordinances are drafted.

Solar farms are vast areas that generate electricity using photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal systems. Large-scale solar farms can accommodate hundreds or thousands of solar panels that convert sunlight into electric power.

The Pros

• Solar energy plays an important role in decarbonization and reduces the need for fossil fuels.

• Solar farms generate electricity with none of the greenhouse gases and other harmful emissions from traditional power plants.

• Solar panels are low maintenance and solar farms operate quietly with very few moving parts.

• There is currently no scientific evidence to suggest that living near solar farms poses health risks.

  • Most solar panels are poly or mono-crystalline which don’t contain heavy metals. They do not contain contaminants at levels considered toxic to humans or harmful to soil.   

  • The vast majority of today's PV modules are either crystalline silicon or cadmium telluride (97% and 3% of the 2022 market share, respectively). Crystalline silicon PV modules are 77% glass, 10% aluminum, 3% silicon, and 9% polymers, with less than 1% copper, silver, and tin, and less than 0.1% lead. Cadmium telluride (CdTe) modules are 80%–85% glass, 11%–14% aluminum, 2%–4% polymers, less than 0.4% copper, and less than 0.1% tellurium and cadmium. (All percentages are by weight.)

  • The two materials of concern are the trace amounts of lead in the solder of crystalline silicon panels, which represent a very small percentage by weight—less than 0.1%—and the cadmium in CdTe, which, in some of the newer modules, is as low as .008%..

  • Learn more about toxicity concerns here.

The Cons

While solar farms are efficient at producing clean energy and reducing greenhouse emissions, there are drawbacks associated with large-scale solar facilities, including:

• Large land masses are needed to be productive enough to generate electricity.

• Solar farms can disrupt local wildlife habitat, interfere with drainage, drastically alter ecosystems and impede other land uses.

• Electrical fires at solar farms are rare, but can be devastating and can contaminate the site with toxic smoke and melted plastics and metals. Most of the materials in solar panels are not flammable.

• By 2030, it’s expected solar panels will account for one million tons of waste. Solar panels have a 30 year life cycle. The recycling process of end-of-life or damaged panels can be difficult and expensive and is not yet happening on a large scale in the US. In the United States, the law that governs the disposal of solar panels is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which applies to all solid waste.

• Temperatures around a solar power plant can be warmer than nearby wildlands. However, the added heat dissipates quickly and can't be measured 100 feet away from the power plants.

• Property values and insurance rates of nearby homes may potentially be negatively impacted.

• Aesthetics. With solar farms taking up vast acres of land, it’s important that a community’s culturally rich, historically significant and environmentally sensitive assets are preserved and protected.