Ten pre-checks for county-scale rural renewable-energy planning

A county-scale renewable-energy plan should not begin with capacity targets alone; it should begin with constraints. IAA recommends ten pre-checks: solar and wind resources, permanent basic farmland and ecological red lines, distribution-grid hosting capacity, seasonal agricultural loads, cold-chain and processing demand, storage needs, village benefit-sharing, financing conditions, O&M capacity, and approval pathways.

These checks may seem basic, but they determine whether the plan can be transformed from text into a real project. Especially in areas where Agri-PV, decentralized wind power, and clean heating are being promoted simultaneously, only by clarifying the boundaries of land, power grid, and revenue can subsequent investment calculations be meaningful.