Most U.S. Utility-Scale Solar Projects Face Little Local Conflict, Study Finds

Overview

• The UMass Amherst study, published in late May 2026, analyzed 686 utility-scale solar projects that began commercial operation between January 2022 and November 2023 and found 56% had no or low observable conflict while 19% experienced high conflict.
• Researchers built a conflict-attention index by scanning news coverage and social media for dispute-related terms such as “protest,” “lawsuit,” and “opposition” to classify projects into intensity tiers.
• Projects reviewed under state-level permitting were statistically linked to fewer visible disputes, with the study reporting a 16.9 percentage-point rise in zero-conflict outcomes and a 9.4 percentage-point drop in high-conflict cases compared with local review.
• Project size was a strong predictor of pushback: the probability of high conflict more than doubled when comparing the largest-capacity quartile to the smallest-capacity quartile.
• Authors caution the results are observational and rely on public signals, note possible survivorship bias from sampling only completed projects, and call for causal research into how permitting design shapes public participation, equity, siting speed and local outcomes as demand for power grows.