Siting Is Risk Mitigation
When most developers talk about “siting,” they reach for contour maps and transmission maps. Important yet incomplete. In reality, the latitude‑and‑longitude decision is the first and biggest de‑risking move you’ll make on an energy project. Get the pin‑drop wrong and every dollar you spend on engineering, legal, and lobbying is a gamble. Get it right and the rest of the project becomes an exercise in execution.
Below is the checklist I use when screening parcels for solar, BESS, and now small modular reactors. Note how little of it is raw geography.
nuclear, smr, advanced nuclear, solar, bess, community engagement, public relations, government
1. The Human Radius
Who lives within two miles? Retired engineers? Teachers? A vocal anti‑tax group? Each demographic comes with a predictable narrative arc.
Informal power brokers. The café owner who serves as de‑facto newswire, the township clerk who knows every parcel transfer….map them early.
Future neighbors. Planned subdivisions can turn a quiet ag buffer into a cul‑de‑sac of opposition in five years.
2. Policy Time‑Machine
Regional 2050 plans. MPOs and state climate offices publish electrification and land‑use scenarios; your project should look like it was foretold there.
Zoning rewrites in motion. Is the county quietly drafting an industrial solar setback? Get ahead of it or find another county.
Grant and incentive horizon. Sites inside Justice40 tracts or hydrogen hubs ride a tailwind of public funding, worth a marginal capex premium.
3. Sentiment Baseline, Not Afterthought
Noise before the noise. Scrape Facebook groups, local listservs, even Nextdoor chatter. Opposition networks leave digital footprints long before they brand a yard sign.
Media microclimate. A single county‑weekly can shape narrative for 30,000 people. Know the editor’s angle before your B-roll hits their inbox.
Legacy wounds. Has a previous wind developer ghosted on road repairs? Did a gas pipeline spill? These memories become cudgels if you ignore them.
4. Infrastructure Plus “Influence‑Structure”
Grid‑headroom math is half the story. The other half is who controls the queue and how they feel about new baseload.
Logistics optics. A two‑mile haul road that passes a school may be technically feasible yet politically fatal.
Redevelopment story. Converting a retired coal plant wins points; bulldozing an oak savanna loses them. Narrative ROI matters.
5. Scenario Scoring
I score parcels on a 1‑to‑5 scale across four vectors:
Anything below 3.5 overall could be a total pass, no matter how “cheap” the land looks on paper.
Takeaway
Siting isn’t a GIS task; it’s risk arbitration. Every overlooked neighbor, every pending ordinance, every soft‑spoken county engineer is a latent cost driver—unless you account for them upfront. Spend the time mapping humans and policy trajectories, and your project pro forma will thank you for the next 40 years.
Ready to pressure‑test your shortlist? Let’s talk.
Rashay Khripunova is the founder of Sown Strategies, helping developers turn first‑of‑their‑kind energy projects into hometown wins.
