Golf courses might be an ideal place for solar farm construction because of their vast, green spaces and exposure to abundant sunshine. In fact, some money-losing golf courses have been transformed into PV power stations with the hope of turning losses into gains.
Daily maintenance of a golf course is far from easy, as it requires tons of water for irrigation. Statistics show that in the US alone, golf courses require more than 2 billion gallons (equiv. 7.5 billion liters) of water every day. On average, each golf course needs 130,000 gallons (equiv. 490,000 liters) of water daily, not to mention the considerable effort for lawn care. The said work signifies a huge burden on golf companies having difficulties in operation, consequently driving some of them to change their business.
There is one 27-acre “history-filled” land in Long Island of New York that started out as a landfill, was turned into a driving range in the 1980s, and ultimately got converted to a solar farm in 2019. The solar farm has brought positive benefits to the island, including the supply of electricity for about 1,000 families, the elimination of pesticide use and the generation of an additional $800,000 income for local governments.
The said land transformation case is not the only one. Due to the reduced cost of solar panels, decline of golfing (which could be attributed to the fact that there were too many golf courses) and the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous golf course operators chose to shift their business to other sectors. Between 2003 and 2018, the number of golfers in the US plunged by 6.8 million with 1,200 golf courses being closed. The National Golf Foundation reported that sixty 18-hole golf courses had closed by early July 2021 and it estimates that a total of 100 will be closed by the end of this year. The number is nevertheless lower than those in previous years, indicating an equilibrium. Specifically, some of the closed courses will become solar farms.
Despite ecosystem restoration being the optimal choice for those closed golf courses, solar farm construction is considered to be the “lesser of two evils” compared to real estate or construction project establishment.
In Japan, golf courses are also being transformed into solar farms. In the late 1980s, numerous luxurious country clubs were permanently closed due to the economic bubble. Accordingly, electronics manufacturer Kyocera turned an abandoned golf course into a 23MW solar power plant that inaugurated in 2017 and has since then been providing electricity for 8,100 families. In 2020, the Kyoto-based company repurposed a golf course in Kagoshima on the island of Kyushu as a large-scale 100MW solar farm with 356,928 panels and a capacity of generating 117,000 MWh per year.
“Terrain conditions” are another factor making golf courses an ideal place for solar farm construction. A golf course is already a flat ground with complete flood and landslide prevention facilities, thereby saving considerable preliminary works. To solar businesses, golf courses are desirably qualified for power plant construction.
(The first photo shows the 100MW solar farm built by Kyocera in Kyushu; credit: Kyocera)