The Disamenity Impact of Solar Farms: A Hedonic Analysis

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Figure 1
Operational Solar Farms in England and Wales

Table 1

Data Set

Variable (Units)	Nonmissing Observations	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min.	Max.
Price (£s Jan. 2015)	204,315	227,651.1	157,165	1.907	7,498,027
New	204,315	0.104	0.306	0.000	1.000
Submitted	190,734	0.146	0.353	0.000	1.000
Permitted	189,221	0.131	0.337	0.000	1.000
Construction	165,769	0.098	0.297	0.000	1.000
Operational	204,275	0.101	0.301	0.000	1.000
Capacity (MW)	204,315	6.042	6.451	1.000	69.8
North	204,315	0.473	0.499	0.000	1.000
Distance (km)	204,315	0.723	0.208	0.006	0.999
Detached	204,315	0.330	0.470	0	1
Semi	204,315	0.303	0.459	0	1
Terraced	204,315	0.297	0.457	0	1
Freehold	204,315	0.908	0.287	0	1

Note: We checked £1.907 (first row in the “Min.” column), and it appears to be legitimate. The next lowest minimum is nevertheless much larger. We also experimented with dropping the smallest and largest 1% of observations.

Table 2

Regression Results

Variable	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
Distance	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤1,000 m	≤500 m
Operational	0.003	0.010	0.004	0.027
Operational	(0.024)	(0.012)	(0.017)	(0.036)
Submitted–permitted	−0.000	0.008	−0.002	0.007
Submitted–permitted	(0.010)	(0.009)	(0.007)	(0.013)
Permitted–construction	−0.010	−0.004	−0.005	0.008
Permitted–construction	(0.011)	(0.009)	(0.008)	(0.014)
Construction–operational	0.002	0.006	−0.001	0.009
Construction–operational	(0.014)	(0.010)	(0.010)	(0.022)
New	0.089^***	0.079^***	0.082^***	0.079^***
New	(0.009)	(0.009)	(0.007)	(0.009)
Property fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time trends	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
No. observations	73,069	73,069	156,493	25,666
No. properties	44,212	44,212	94,001	15,647
No. solar farms	609	609	703	445
R-squared (within)	0.020	0.014	0.018	0.024

Note: Figures in parentheses are robust standard errors. The dependent variable is ln(PRICE).
* p < 0.1;
** p < 0.05;
↵*** p < 0.01.

Table 3

Regression Results by Region

Variable	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8	Model 9	Model 10
Region	North West, North East, Yorkshire, Humberside	West Midlands, East Midlands	Eastern	London, South East	South West	Wales
Distance	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m
Operational	−0.030	−0.007	−0.023	−0.035	0.020	0.001
Operational	(0.045)	(0.031)	(0.038)	(0.022)	(0.034)	(0.042)
Submitted–permitted	−0.030	0.008	0.001	−0.019	−0.003	0.035
Submitted–permitted	(0.032)	(0.034)	(0.022)	(0.017)	(0.015)	(0.038)
Permitted–construction	−0.002	0.001	−0.022	−0.032	−0.021	0.042
Permitted–construction	(0.043)	(0.024)	(0.029)	(0.023)	(0.017)	(0.032)
Construction–operational	−0.028	0.009	−0.022	0.001	−0.004	0.049
Construction–operational	(0.063)	(0.036)	(0.039)	(0.031)	(0.021)	(0.050)
New	0.117^***	0.088^***	0.079^***	0.062^***	0.091^***	0.110^***
New	(0.019)	(0.018)	(0.018)	(0.013)	(0.018)	(0.032)
Property fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time trends	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
No. observations	9,002	10,287	6,321	16,533	22,053	8,873
No. properties	5,971	6,356	3,739	9,449	13,000	5,697
No. solar farms	45	130	74	107	186	67
R-squared (within)	0.048	0.024	0.028	0.018	0.032	0.033

Note: Figures in parentheses are robust standard errors. The dependent variable is ln(PRICE).
* p < 0.1;
** p < 0.05;
↵*** p < 0.01.

Table 4

Regression Results by Site Characteristics

Variable	Model 11	Model 12	Model 13	Model 14
Capacity	≤5 MW	>5 MW	≤5 MW	>5 MW
Orientation	North	North	South	South
Distance	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m
Operational	0.017	−0.038	0.021	−0.056^***
Operational	(0.030)	(0.025)	(0.032)	(0.016)
Submitted–permitted	0.010	−0.009	−0.000	−0.029^*
Submitted–permitted	(0.017)	(0.032)	(0.016)	(0.017)
Permitted–construction	−0.016	−0.025	−0.008	−0.017
Permitted–construction	(0.016)	(0.023)	(0.017)	(0.018)
Construction–operational	−0.011	0.028	0.003	−0.015
Construction–operational	(0.018)	(0.028)	(0.025)	(0.026)
New	0.113^***	0.062^***	0.086^***	0.078^***
New	(0.018)	(0.015)	(0.012)	(0.014)
Property fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time trends	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
No. observations	24,030	9,619	27,738	11,682
No. properties	14,513	5,810	16,793	7,096
No. solar farms	284	204	285	192
R-squared (within)	0.025	0.020	0.023	0.027

Note: Figures in parentheses are robust standard errors. The dependent variable is ln(PRICE).
↵* p < 0.1;
** p < 0.05;
↵*** p < 0.01.

Table 5

Further Regression Results

Variable	Model 15	Model 16	Model 17
Capacity	>10 MW	>5 MW	>5 MW
Orientation	South	South	South
Distance	≤750 m	>750 m	≤500 m
Operational	−0.102^***	−0.018	−0.065^***
Operational	(0.022)	(0.022)	(0.024)
Submitted–permitted	−0.037^*	−0.043^***	0.002
Submitted–permitted	(0.020)	(0.012)	(0.025)
Permitted–construction	−0.035	−0.025	−0.007
Permitted–construction	(0.030)	(0.016)	(0.030)
Construction–operational	−0.060^*	−0.026	−0.036
Construction–operational	(0.031)	(0.029)	(0.038)
New	0.079^***	0.065^***	0.035
New	(0.021)	(0.024)	(0.033)
Property fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time trends	Yes	Yes	Yes
No. observations	4,405	12,514	4,166
No. properties	2,592	7,420	2,589
No. solar farms	88	192	110
R-squared (within)	0.057	0.021	0.033

Note: Figures in parentheses are robust standard errors. The dependent variable is ln(PRICE).
↵* p < 0.1;
** p < 0.05;
↵*** p < 0.01.

Table 6

Regression Results for Tests of Robustness

Variable	Model 18	Model 19	Model 20	Model 21
Capacity	>5 MW	>5 MW	>5 MW	>5 MW
Orientation	South	South	South	South
Distance	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m	≤750 m
Operational (placebo)	0.003
Operational (placebo)	(0.006)
Submitted–permitted (placebo)	−0.031
Submitted–permitted (placebo)	(0.021)
Permitted–construction (placebo)	−0.003
Permitted–construction (placebo)	(0.016)
Construction–operational (placebo)	−0.017
Construction–operational (placebo)	(0.025)
Operational		−0.057^***	−0.040^**	−0.058^***
Operational		(0.014)	(0.018)	(0.019)
Submitted–permitted		−0.020	−0.019	−0.010
Submitted–permitted		(0.016)	(0.019)	(0.021)
Permitted–construction		−0.014	−0.022	0.006
Permitted–construction		(0.016)	(0.021)	(0.022)
Construction–operational		−0.029	−0.041^*	−0.024
Construction–operational		(0.020)	(0.024)	(0.031)
Detached			0.496^***
Detached			(0.063)
Terraced			0.132^**
Terraced			(0.055)
Semi			0.229^***
Semi			(0.054)
Freehold			0.361^***
Freehold			(0.063)
New	0.075^***	0.075^***	0.094^***	0.110^***
New	(0.011)	(0.014)	(0.017)	(0.012)
Property fixed effects	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Postcode fixed effects	No	No	Yes	No
Time trends	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
No. observations	11,686	11,449	11,682	11,682
No. properties	7,096	6,973	7,097	7,097
No. postcodes	711	699	711	711
No. solar farms	192	191	192	192
R-squared (within)	0.026	0.027	0.230	0.892

Note: Figures in parentheses are robust standard errors. The dependent variable is ln(PRICE); the dependent variable is ln(NOMINAL) for model 21.
↵* p < 0.1;
↵** p < 0.05;
↵*** p < 0.01.