Pennsylvania passes law establishing solar decommissioning plans

Pennsylvania has a new law covering large solar projects, the kind built on leased farmland or open land rather than home rooftops. Governor Josh Shapiro signed Senate Bill 349, which requires solar projects of 2 megawatts or larger to have a decommissioning plan, essentially a plan for tearing down the panels and restoring the land once the project stops operating.

Under the law, project owners must give landowners a decommissioning plan within 30 days of starting construction, then update it every five years. If a project goes inactive, it has to be fully removed within 18 months unless it's being restarted. Removal means taking out the solar equipment and any access roads built for it, and returning the land to something close to its condition before construction, including replacing topsoil. If a company skips providing a plan, whoever started the project has to pay the landowner the estimated cost of decommissioning instead, with that cost checked periodically by outside engineers. The law also bars using solar components made with forced labor, under existing federal rules.

This mainly affects landowners who lease acreage to solar developers, not homeowners with rooftop panels. But it is a sign that states are paying closer attention to what happens when large solar farms age out or shut down, making sure land gets cleaned up and restored rather than left with abandoned equipment.