Abstract

As the aquifers beneath the San Luis Valley hit new lows, farmers and ranchers in this agricultural hub of southern Colorado are being encouraged to fallow their fields. With water scarcity as a push factor and renewable energy mandates as a pull factor, the Valley seems poised for a major transition toward solar energy production—but it is not yet clear whether or how it might happen. The lack of transmission in and out of the Valley has been identified by some analysts as the most salient factor shaping the Valley’s renewable energy future, but interview data reveals additional factors working against the transition: high prices for agricultural commodities that discourage land use conversion, experiences of previous solar energy development that stalled or left landowners disappointed, contractual limits on utilities' ability to generate power in the Valley, and incoherence of policy and regulatory tools. Still, across the Valley, residents are articulating what sorts of guarantees they need from utilities in order to greenlight further development; exploring how to stack different policies, incentives, and grants together in order to optimize the sequencing of the transition to fit the Valley's unique climate and ecology; and calling for practical experiments on multifunctional land use. This article seeks to synthesize conversations about so-called "barriers" to renewable energy development with insights from political ecology about the ways in which local histories of development, forces beyond the Valley, the uneven distribution of burdens and benefits, and policy and regulatory (in)coherence shape energy trajectories here, as elsewhere. 

Keywords: solar energy, limnality, energy transition, water-energy nexus

How to Cite:

Andrews, E., Miller, R., Smith, S. & Kroepsch, A., (2026) “The hatchet and the splice: The liminality of solar energy development in the San Luis Valley, Colorado”, Journal of Political Ecology 33(1): 8609. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.8609