a b s t r a c tDetermining socially acceptable and economically viable locations for utility-scale solar projects is a costly process that depends on many technical, economic, environmental and social factors. This paper presents a GIS-based multi-criteria solar project siting study conducted in the southwestern United States with a unique social preference component. Proximity raster layers were derived from features including roads, power lines, and rivers then overlain with 10 Â 10 m raster terrain datasets including slope and potential irradiance to produce a high resolution map showing solar energy potential from "poor" to "excellent" for high potential counties across the southwestern United States. Similar maps were produced by adding social acceptance data collected from a series of surveys showing the potential public resistance to development that can be expected in areas of high solar energy suitability. Applying social preferences to the model significantly reduced the amount of suitable area in each of the selected study areas. The methods demonstrated are expected to help reduce time, money, and resources currently allocated toward finding and assessing areas of high solar power suitability.

a b s t r a c tUsing data collected from both a National sample as well as an oversample in U.S. Southwest, we examine public attitudes toward the construction of utility-scale solar facilities in the U.S. as well as development in one's own county. Our multivariate analyses assess demographic and sociopsychological factors as well as context in terms of proximity of proposed project by considering the effect of predictors for respondents living in the Southwest versus those from a National sample. We find that the predictors, and impact of the predictors, related to support and opposition to solar development vary in terms of psychological and physical distance. Overall, for respondents living in the U.S. Southwest we find that environmentalism, belief that developers receive too many incentives, and trust in project developers to be significantly related to support and opposition to solar development, in general. When Southwest respondents consider large-scale solar development in their county, the influence of these variables changes so that property value, race, and age only yield influence. Differential effects occur for respondents of our National sample. We believe our findings to be relevant for those outside the U.S. due to the considerable growth PV solar has experienced in the last decade, especially in China, Japan, Germany, and the U.S.

a b s t r a c tAs solar costs have declined PV systems have experienced considerable growth since 2003, especially in China, Japan, Germany, and the U.S. Thus, a more nuanced understanding of a particular public's attitudes toward utility-scale solar development, as it arrives in a market and region, is warranted and will likely be instructive for other areas in the world where this type of development will occur in the near future. Using data collected from a 2013 telephone survey (N = 594) from the six Southern Californian counties selected based on existing and proposed solar developments and available suitable land, we examine public attitudes toward solar energy and construction of large-scale solar facilities, testing whether attitudes toward such developments are the result of sense of place and attachment to place. Overall, we have mixed results. Place attachment and sense of place fail to produce significant effects except in terms of perceived positive benefits. That is, respondents interpret the change resulting from large-scale solar development in a positive way insofar as perceived positive economic impacts are positively related to support for nearby large-scale construction.

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