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of preventing shading and can thus be deterred from using solar energy
systems on their land.
“Policy type #2” in Table 5.1 encompasses those policies that essen-
tially prohibit landowners from occupying their own airspace with trees
and/or buildings when doing so would shade a neighbor's solar energy
system. These aggressive pro-solar policies ensure cost-free solar access
protection for all landowners who install solar energy devices on their
land and are thus the most strongly favored by advocates of the solar
energy industry. However, as described earlier in the chapter, such laws
can produce inefficient outcomes whenever occupying the airspace at
issue with trees, buildings, or other structures would be a higher valued
use of the space.
Solar access policies modeled after Iowa's statute—“Policy type #3” in
Table 5.1 — require that parties who get solar access protection across
neighboring airspace compensate neighbors for their consequent loss of
airspace rights. This approach is not only more equitable to neighbors; it is
also more likely to maximize the productivity of airspace. Landowners with
solar energy systems must pay fair value for solar access systems rather than
getting them for free under Iowa's rule, which incentivizes them to obtain
solar access easements only when they value the space for that purpose
more than the market values the space for other uses. Because of this unique
feature, the Iowa approach is better able to promote the efficient use of
airspace regardless of whether solar access protection is worth more or less
than competing uses of the space.
The future of solar access laws
As distributed solar energy development continues to proliferate across
the globe, conflicts over solar access will only increase. Although the ideas
set forth in this chapter may help to govern these disputes, an even better
solution would be to find ways to expand solar energy development while
avoiding these conflicts altogether. Fortunately, some recent innovations in
solar PV system design and trends in solar energy siting may ultimately help
to do just that.
The most direct way to eliminate the solar access problem through
technology would be to engineer solar panels that produced almost as
much electricity in the shade as they produced in direct sunlight. There
is no reason to believe that such a dramatic advancement will be made
anytime soon, but researchers are gradually improving systems to make
them less prone to shading. For example, a recent study found that the use
of micro-inverters in solar panels significantly mitigated shade's impacts on
solar panel productivity. 58 Hopefully, these technologies will continue to
progress in the coming decades.
Another way to avoid solar access conflicts is to increase the proportion of
solar energy development that takes the form of commercial- or utility-scale
 
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