By Mandy Carr

May 24 2025

The best way to understand something is to start a conversation about it. That's precisely what happened when a Redditor posted an image of a vast solar farm.

The image sparked a conversation about solar farms located near commenters and the benefits that these projects can bring.

The Redditor posted the image in the r/conspiracy subreddit captioned, "'Green' Energy."

These types of solar farms are all across the U.S. Solar Feeds compiled a list of the 10 biggest ones in the U.S. in 2021. Many of them were in California, but some were also in Nevada and Arizona.

One in Antelope Valley Solar Ranch, California, provides electricity for about 75,000 homes.

Some people criticize solar farms for displacing wildlife and harming habitats. It's likely how an image like this ended up in the r/conspiracy subreddit, and it prompted one user to ask, "Why is this a conspiracy?"

If you know what good solar farms do, this is a reasonable question to ask, and it's what spurred the conversation.

While solar farms need land or some other large surface to be built, they can actually serve as a biodiversity hub, providing shelter for wildlife.

They can also help restore nature. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of Minnesota, Temple University, Minnesota Native Landscapes, and Argonne National Laboratory found that solar panels can restore native prairies. Solar farms can also help create rich soil for plants, pollinators, and wildlife.

Solar farms can save people money, too. For example, community solar sites can save those who usually pay $125 a month on electricity bills around $150 a year.