Rural communities are transforming due to various socio-technical changes, including deployment of land-intensive renewable energy technologies like large-scale solar (LSS) facilities (20MW+). Much is speculated but little is known about how landowners in places set to host LSS facilities perceive community change from LSS, how perceptions may differ depending on place-based context, and how these insights can inform community development practice. Drawing on a survey of 1,500 landowners in three New York State counties, this study explores landowners’ level of support, beliefs about, and experiences with LSS development in their communities. Land-intensive renewable energy technologies, like large-scale solar (LSS) facilities, are being installed in rural areas at a pace and scale not seen before in the U.S. Specifically, New York State (NYS) has accelerated siting processes for LSS facilities to meet their climate policy goal of generating 70% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. It remains to be seen if deployment of LSS represents an “innovative pathway” for the rural communities set to host these installations to thrive. To understand the challenges and opportunities in leveraging LSS development for community benefit, this paper presents quantitative social science data from NYS landholders about LSS projects in their communities, including their support levels and perceptions of future community prosperity after LSS development. Our paper advances place based research focused on the potential for LSS to act as an innovative pathway to rural prosperity and to generate ideas about community development practice in the context of LSS. In that way, our paper speaks to the ‘technological integration” conference track, as LSS is an emerging technology that will soon be deployed widely in NYS and beyond, but also the “place based collaboration” track since our work promotes place-based research and reports on regional variation, local context, and impacts across communities.
