While wind turbines are almost always placed in rural environments, solar energy can fit into urban or suburban settings. Rooftop panels and small ground-mount systems offer opportunities to place solar on urban or suburban properties, and typically the power produced is used to provide on-site electricity.
But there are instances of urban solar projects where the power is sold directly to the grid. One way that larger solar energy systems can fit into urban areas is with solar carports. This is a way to utilize already developed land for solar energy production, while also offering the benefit of shading parked cars. Michigan State University has a solar carport project that covers 5,000 parking spots on campus. Additionally, land that is of marginal quality can be ideal sites for solar energy production. Marginal quality land can include brownfield sites, former industrial land, landfills, and other sites that are not ideal for development. Solar panels can be developed and installed so that they don't penetrate the ground and don't require as much remediation on sites as other kinds of development do. In this way, they offer an economic development opportunity for land that is compromised or has other developmental challenges.