Episode 176 | Solar Sentiment | Transect
Developing solar projects can be extremely complex. A 500-MW project may need 2,500 acres. That means getting adjacent landowners to agree to 20-year leases, close access to transmission lines, and no environmentally-sensitive impacts—just to name a few.
“We know we’re in a land race in renewables. We know the easy sites are already taken by development,” says Robin Laine, co-founder and CEO of Transect. Robin started her San Antonio-based company seven years ago, after a career as working on environmental permitting. Inefficiencies in the due diligence process led her to develop the software tools Transect now offers their clients, with an emphasis on environmental constraints and permitting.
Robin says about 9 out of 10 sites fail to materialize for solar developers. But with Transect’s “Find Tool,” they are able to find out in minutes rather than days or weeks.
In October, the company unveiled their Solar Pulse tool, capable of analyzing “solar sentiment” in a community, using AI. Robin says it uses advanced sentiment algorithms, machine learning, and natural language processing. From there a community is given a positive (😀), neutral (😐), or negative (😟) about how a community might feel about a site in their jurisdiction.
Going into this interview I mistakenly assumed that this tool was scouring social media for people’s attitudes. Rather, Robin says Solar Pulse looks for news articles about similar developments in an area, as well as county codes and public meeting minutes.
I was curious if trends have already begun to appear. Robin says communities who might have felt “burned” by solar developers in the past tend to have negative sentiment. Transect will provide a customer a curated list of resources that led to this “sad face.”
“We want our customers to have every opportunity to engage with the community and vice versa,” she says.
Much like environmental groups in the past, solar opposition groups can stop a project dead in its tracks. Much like environmental groups in the past, solar opposition groups can stop a project dead in its tracks. Robin mentioned a stat that there were 45 anti-solar Facebook groups in 2022. The year before there were only 9. Studies show that there are at least 228 local municipalities that have adopted policies that have either blocked or restricted renewable development.
“This is definitely a snowballing problem,” she says.
In addition to solar, Transect is also working with wind, transmission, and energy storage developers. In addition to community sentiment, Robin says they plan to expand ways AI can help find the perfect site. One example I mentioned was predicting how long permitting can take.
“There’s a lot of folks getting on the train with tech,” says Robin. “[Developers] realize it’s the best way to keep up in the land race.”
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