“Since the economic downturn, residents and businesses have been looking for ways to use real estate that may no longer appeal to mall developers or home builders. One option is to build solar energy farms, where thousands of solar panels convert the sun’s energy into electricity.”

Developers and Farmers have a particular incentive to do so in Ontario, Canada where the Providence’s Feed-In-Tariff program, and sometimes-local incentives, has made solar energy farming very profitable. (Learn how you can be part of the Ontario F.I.T. program from the experts at ethosolar.com)

Solar panels located in empty or unused fields have become more common, and some businesses are also using idle land nearby to build small solar farms to power their companies.

“You have a lot of corporate offices that have little microfarms, like three-acre things, that were next to the building. Those are places that are very much appropriate for people to develop into solar power to feed directly into those companies.” Adam J. Zellner, the president of Greener by Design, an environmental asset management and energy investment company in New Brunswick.

One that opened in October 2009 at the Livingston Campus of Rutgers. The 1.4-megawatt solar installation, with more than 7,000 solar panels on seven acres, is on the smaller side as solar farms go — some in Europe are on hundreds of acres — but the energy it produces is harvested to provide power to all the buildings on campus. This has also reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 1,300 tons a year, according to the university.

Now that payback on solar panels and installations had become shorter — about three and a half to five years— most solar farms tended to be longer-term investments, and with the new technology now available, solar panels and equipment have longer term viability, some warranties stretching up to 25 years. (Learn more about Solar Panel warranties with a FREE consultation with the experts at ethosolar.com)

If you have vacant land or know someone with vacant land, within Ontario, you just might need to be a Solar Farmer. Ethosolar can help you turn unused or underused land into an electricity production farm and make you a very good return on your investment. ethosolar.com

Source: NY Times
Source: Livingston Campus, Rutgers University