alt Hacker NewsWe are at a moment where we are finding more and more ways to integrate solar in. It is likely we will go 'too far' in some ways but hopefully over the next few decades we will see a lot more well integrated solutions like vertical panels complementing farming and solar integrated, potentially with lower efficiency but also less impact, into things like building surfaces and other non-traditional places. Getting a diversity of options out there, and iterating on them, is key to the next phase where solar is everywhere reasonable by default and well integrated in to daily life.
I live in the UK in a town of 10,000 people, so say 4,000 houses (probably far higher than there are). If every house had a 10kWp (way more than most installs) that would be 40MW generation.
On the outskirts of town we have a 40MW solar farm about the same size as the golf course. Most people have no idea it's there, it uses barely any land compared to the rest of farmland around here. That generates about 40GWh a year.
The cost of renting the land it's on each year is about £20k a year, or 50p per MWh, basically nothing. Land is effectively free compared to the value from "farming the sun", it's far cheaper than the scaffolding to put 8kWp on a roof