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philipkglasstoday at 3:40 PM0 repliesview on HN

Yes, this does happen. Solar farms have an albedo modification effect. The good news is that compared to fossil powered generation, the albedo modification is "paid back" in less than a year due to lower GHG emissions:

"Small reduction in land surface albedo due to solar panel expansion worldwide"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01619-w

If you download the supplementary information PDF, figure 19 shows a plot of GHG payback times by site. The most common time is about 1 month. The greatest time they found was about 9 months. These times go down as solar panel efficiencies continue to creep upward, because solar panels in 2026 don't have lower albedo than in 2024, but they do have better light-to-electricity conversion efficiency.