U.S. Solar Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2022)
A machine readable collection of documented solar siting ordinances at the state and local (e.g., county, township) level throughout the United States. The data were compiled based on a locality-by-locality review zoning ordinances after completing an initial review of scholarly legal articles. The citations for each ordinance are included in the Solar Ordinances spreadsheet resource below.
**Note: an updated version of this dataset can be found at the "U.S. Solar Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2025)" link below.**
Complete Metadata
| @type | dcat:Dataset |
|---|---|
| accessLevel | public |
| bureauCode |
[
"019:20"
]
|
| contactPoint |
{
"fn": "NREL Geospatial Data Science",
"@type": "vcard:Contact",
"hasEmail": "mailto:rev@nrel.gov"
}
|
| dataQuality |
true
|
| description | A machine readable collection of documented solar siting ordinances at the state and local (e.g., county, township) level throughout the United States. The data were compiled based on a locality-by-locality review zoning ordinances after completing an initial review of scholarly legal articles. The citations for each ordinance are included in the Solar Ordinances spreadsheet resource below. **Note: an updated version of this dataset can be found at the "U.S. Solar Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2025)" link below.** |
| distribution |
[
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "U.S. Counties FIPS Layer on OEDI",
"format": "HTML",
"accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/submissions/8397",
"mediaType": "text/html",
"description": "OEDI submission including a map of U.S. Counties FIPS Layer which are utilized to compute setbacks (distances)."
},
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "U.S. Solar Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances 2025",
"format": "HTML",
"accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/submissions/8602",
"mediaType": "text/html",
"description": "Updated 2025 version of the data. "
},
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "Solar Ordinances.xlsx",
"format": "xlsx",
"mediaType": "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
"description": "This data represents a collection of documented solar siting ordinances at the state, county, township, and local level including MW power limits, noise limits, setback distance requirements from property lines, and any solar farm exclusions.",
"downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/5734/Solar%20Ordinances.xlsx"
},
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "Solar Ordinances 2024-10-23.gpkg",
"format": "gpkg",
"mediaType": "application/geopackage+sqlite3",
"description": "This dataset is derived from the original Solar Ordinances.xlsx' file, with formatting and data cleaning applied to ensure compatibility with reVx. Additionally, the data are stored as a Geopackage, which includes jurisdictional boundaries linked to each specific ordinance.",
"downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/5734/solar_ordinances_2024-10-23.gpkg"
}
]
|
| DOI | 10.25984/1873867 |
| identifier | https://data.openei.org/submissions/5734 |
| issued | 2022-06-30T06:00:00Z |
| keyword |
[
"SitingLab",
"United States",
"energy",
"exclusion",
"incentives",
"law",
"legal",
"legislation",
"local",
"ordinances",
"policy",
"power",
"pv",
"regulations",
"regulatory constraint",
"siting",
"solar",
"solar pv"
]
|
| landingPage | https://data.openei.org/submissions/5734 |
| license | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| modified | 2026-02-03T13:40:12Z |
| programCode |
[
"019:000",
"019:008"
]
|
| projectNumber |
"38421"
|
| projectTitle | Solar Siting and Land-use in Decarbonized Energy Systems |
| publisher |
{
"name": "National Renewable Energy Laboratory",
"@type": "org:Organization"
}
|
| spatial |
"{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-125.4514,24.5873],[-66.5318,24.5873],[-66.5318,49.2637],[-125.4514,49.2637],[-125.4514,24.5873]]]}"
|
| title | U.S. Solar Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2022) |
