Suppose you are the landowner, and you are not yet utilizing it. In that case, you might wonder about starting a solar farm and monetizing it, creating a potential business that may give you important income.
However, before jumping on the income potential you might make by raising 1 acre of a solar farm, it is important to know and consider all the costs of starting 1 acre of a solar farm.
Here’s How Much Does a 1-Acre Solar Farm Cost
The average cost to start a 1 acre of solar farm ranges from $350,000 to $500.000.However, there are important variables that may vary the cost of it, such as the location, suppliers, and governments incentives.
If the cost mentioned until now didn’t scare you, keep reading because, in the next part of the article, we will look at all the essential information you need to know if you want to raise 1 acre of the solar farm.
3 Influencers Factors That Make Varying The Cost of A Solar Farm
Starting a solar farm is considered a good investment for improving our world’s general health and, economically, your wallet.
Solar farms are rows of solar panels installed on the ground of lands; they typically cover variable ranges of spaces.
The size of solar farms can go from a minimum of 1 acre until reaching more than 100 acres.
The best places to build solar farms are on a flat ground; the size of solar farms you will fit will be a good indicator of the quantity of expected energy they can produce.
If we consider the average electricity consumption for homes is 3,600KWh, it would be installed 5MW of total capacity; you can produce energy for more than 1,350 houses, saving more than 1,200 tons of carbon every year.
Some of the most important factors that make fluctuated the cost of the solar farm are:
- Size of the solar farm
- Location
- Technology used
- Cost of operation and maintenance
- Security measured
Cost of a Solar Farm By Size
The quantity of energy usually quantifies the cost of a solar farm that they can produce; a reasonable estimation of charge can be considered to be around $0.82 to $1.36 per watt.
So, if you were wondering about building a solar farm of 1 megawatt (MW) it would cost you around $820,000 to $1.36 million.
Take a look here for more detailed information.
If you want to produce energy for 1 megawatt do you will need a lot of space, in general, you can consider around 4 to 6 acres of land.
Considering that date taken from a valuable source, in the below part of the article, we decided to create a table with an estimation of the cost you might face for acres of land.
- 1 $250,000
- 2 $500,000
- 3 $750,000
- 4 1$ Million
- 8 2$ million
- 10 $2, 5 Million
Cost of Solar Farm By Location
Choosing a good location is one of the most important factors to consider if you want to start a solar farm.
The location of where the farm will be placed will vary the overall cost of the entire project.
Building a solar farm near the city will be more expensive than building a rural property.
This is mainly due to the difficulty of having a permit to do it.
If we take into examination in a more large view the cost to build a solar farm by country, we will see that the lowest cost to build in is by India with a cost of USD 618/Kw while the highest is on Russian Federation, where it may cost more than USD 2,117/kW.
Cost of a Solar Farm By Types Of Technology
The world of solar energy offers different types of solutions regarding the types of energy you might utilize.
In general, we can say that there are three types of technology that are used in the solar energy field, and they are:
- Photovoltaic (PV)
- Concentrating solar power (CSP)
- Solar heating and cooling (SHC)
Photovoltaic panel cost
The most common and knower technology used on renewable energy is photovoltaic panels.
This device can generate electricity directly from the sunlight via an electronic process.
The average cost per watt is around $1.56/Watt.
Solar heating and cooling panel cost
The main purpose of using that type of technology is to replace the use of natural gas. Instead, this type of system collects the sun’s thermal energy and uses it to provide hot water, space heating, and cooling.
Concentrating solar power cost
This type of technology is considered the most used in creating solar power farms.
It uses mirrors to store the sun’s energy. The thermal energy is then stored and used to produce electricity when needed.
This type of technology has a huge success, especially in a country where substantial land spaces are available.
Anyway, the cost of installing it is not the only problem that you will face, as there are other essential things to know.
Some important requisitions are mandatory before installing a concentrating solar power farm.
One of the most important ones is that the areas must have high solar radiation.
To have some advantage, they must be constructed in huge quantity, at least 100MW.
In some cases, typical CSP plants of 5 to 10 acres are also very common.
Cost of operation and maintenance for a solar farm
At the beginning of the article, we mentioned that the average cost of a 1 acre of solar farm would be about $400,000.
Anyway, that estimation of the cost was made only considering the cost of installation, without considering all the cost of maintenance they need.
The operation cost will include a series of checks that must be performed regularly to always comply with the regulation dictated by the state.
Some of the checks that should be done include grounds survey, cleaning of panels.
A more detailed list of maintenance cost for a solar farm includes:
Cabling cost
These include all Current direct components
Mounting cost
All the materials necessary to cover the cables, including the inverter and all types of combiner boxes.
Safety and security cost
Significant solar farm projects will require a lot of money to invest, and guaranteeing a high level of security is for sure one of the priorities that every owner should take care of.
Some of the costs that may be calculated include fences, cameras, and other security systems, all firefighting equipment.
Monitoring cost
Some of the latest technology can be very costly, especially considering the meteorological sensors and systems.
The monitoring cost for a solar farm may include different types of sensors and systems such as supervisory control and data analysis system, climate monitoring, performance analysis, etc.
Others Cost to Raise a Solar Farm Include
All the costs related to compliance with regulations and obtaining the permits for developing and constructing the solar farm.
The cost of the survey that must be done by expertise will have a high-cost rate per hour.
Cost of hiring people for preparing all the documentation required to comply with all the different parties involved.
Security cost for solar farm
One of the most important aspects to consider when you are building a solar farm is to consider all the costs related to implementing a high level of security.
Some of the considerations that you might take into account when building a solar farm are:
- CCTV Systems
- Perimeter fencing
- Secured access
- Monitor throw active alarms and sirens
- Laser activated lighting
- Manned security station
The main goal of having a high-security level of protection on a solar farm is to protect it from people entering it and damaging all the farm panels.
A rough estimation of the cost that you might face for 1 acre of the solar farm is around $20.00 to $85,000 if you decide to fit your solar farm with the latest technology available.
Conclusion
As you could look at during the article, there are many variables to consider, and a precise estimation of the cost of building a solar farm is tough to make.
Anyway, I hope you have a clearer vision of all the costs of building a 1 acre of solar farm.
