Full Title: Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment
Author(s): Laura Beshilas, Scott Belding, Karin Wadsack, Elizabeth Weber, M.J. Anderson, Kelsey Dillon, Sara Drescher, Jake Glavin, and Reuben Martinez
Publisher(s): National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Publication Date: March 31, 2023
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Description (excerpt):
Tribal land in the United States represents approximately 2% of the country’s total landmass and holds more than 5% of solar photovoltaic (PV) potential. This resource is largely untapped. Many Tribes are actively seeking to engage in solar development; a review of 35 Tribal strategic energy plans in 2019 revealed that 32 of 35 Tribes were exploring solar options for their communities. Many Tribes also cited regulatory hurdles to achieving these goals.
This project, Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment, seeks to unlock some of this potential by bringing Tribal, regulatory, utility, and other stakeholders together to articulate key barriers to Tribal solar adoption and develop replicable solutions. By increasing institutional capacity and developing frameworks, trainings, and a targeted technical document repository for regulatory bodies, utilities, and Tribes, this project can help expand an emerging market.
This project seeks to address policy challenges or barriers that affect solar projects differently specifically or disproportionately because they are located on Tribal land. These effects can be due to Tribal sovereignty and associated legal and jurisdictional differences between these projects and non-Tribal projects off Tribal land. They can be due to land management, permitting, or ownership differences between Tribal and non-Tribal land. These challenges can also be related to common Tribal circumstances that affect Tribes’ abilities to pursue policy change.