Keeping Projects on Track with GIS Technology & High-Quality Data
An area of interest (AOI) for a renewable energy project could involve thousands of acres, dozens of landowners, and many parcels. Deploying an experienced team of land agents is a key step, but there’s also a lot of “behind the scenes” work to keep projects on track.
At New Era Land Services, we support the “on the ground” aspects of renewable energy projects. In addition to providing lease acquisition and right of way services, we’re skilled at using data and GIS technology for a variety of use cases—from prioritizing ideal locations for landowner outreach to visualizing progress throughout a project’s lifecycle.
Let’s look at why leveraging the right mix of data and technology is key for successful renewable projects.
Acquiring the Right Land for a Renewable Project
Before a solar project can begin converting the sun’s rays into usable energy, developers must acquire the necessary land usage rights. In the United States, this typically involves establishing contact with landowners, gaining buy-in for the project, agreeing to terms, and signing agreements.
As you might imagine, there are numerous variables that impact a project’s timeline:
Obtaining timely updates from land agents: One land agent might meet with several landowners in a single day. Condensing these conversations into meaningful summaries requires time and effort, and some land agents are more detailed than others. Even the most thorough land agent needs a structured way to share feedback with the team. In our experience, collecting updates via email is not efficient, which is why we utilize a cloud-based data and project system.
Managing data (and ensuring data accuracy): Unreliable or missing project data leads to incorrect assumptions and misguided decisions. Ensuring data integrity depends on multiple factors, such as having well-trained land agents, intuitive data collection systems, reliable geoprocessing techniques, and data quality safeguards.
Extracting meaningful insights: Joining dynamic project updates with underlying spatial data offers minimal value unless someone translates the information into meaningful reports, maps, or other visualizations. For example, at New Era Land Services we regularly build color-coded maps that indicate a project’s status. Green typically means that a land agreement has been signed for a parcel, while red indicates a disinterested landowner.
Updating project maps and visualizations: Project status maps and dashboards can be incredibly beneficial, but ensuring ongoing data integrity requires frequent updates. After all, each hour, day, and week that goes by brings new developments. Developing a scalable way to extract, join, and update data sets—while maintaining data integrity—is crucial.
Our Approach: Combining Modern GIS Technology with Data Management Practices
At New Era Land Services, we’ve developed a proven workflow for translating on-the-ground project updates into actionable insights for renewable energy clients. Land agents are assigned parcels in our project and data management system, allowing them to easily provide parcel-specific updates in a structured way.
We use modern GIS and geoprocessing tools to join dynamic project statuses with underlying spatial data, making it possible to represent data in a visually intuitive way. Interactive maps and dashboards enable clients (as well as our own land professionals) to quickly understand how a project is progressing. And, we regularly export and join updated project data to ensure visualizations remain fresh and reliable.
Here’s an example of what our client-facing dashboards look like:
Request Support for Your Next Solar or Wind Project
Need a better way to manage the land-related aspects of your renewable energy projects? Contact us to discuss our services, including our GIS and project management capabilities.