IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v32y2025i11p1608-1612.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Too close to the sun: solar farms’ impact on housing prices at subtropical latitudes

Author

Listed:
  • Will Georgic
  • Goran Skosples
  • David Wolf
  • Robert J. Gitter

Abstract

While the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will benefit many constituencies, recent work suggests that newly activated solar panels may negatively impact nearby housing prices. Although a single mechanism driving these effects has not been causally identified, alternative explanations posit that homes near solar farms lose value either due to glare or the loss of open space amenities and associated rural character. We supplement this literature with an analysis distinguished by a unique sample with the most equatorial location to date and the largest average solar farm (26 MW), allowing for a careful investigation of the role of size and glare in the capitalization of solar farm proximity. Using hedonic analysis, manually traced solar farm footprints, and difference-in-differences identification, we find a 6.86% negative capitalization of solar farm proximity that does not appear to be attributable to glare and is driven by the impacts of very large solar farms. The results are robust to concerns of negative weights associated with bad controls. To limit economic losses associated with the renewable energy transition, solar farms should be strategically located to minimize the number of nearby homes regardless of whether glare is likely to be a concern.

Suggested Citation

  • Will Georgic & Goran Skosples & David Wolf & Robert J. Gitter, 2025. "Too close to the sun: solar farms’ impact on housing prices at subtropical latitudes," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(11), pages 1608-1612, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:32:y:2025:i:11:p:1608-1612
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2024.2308586
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2024.2308586
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2024.2308586?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:32:y:2025:i:11:p:1608-1612. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.