Solar energy systems offer significant environmental benefits in comparison to the conventional energy sources, thus they greatly contribute to the sustainable development of human activities. At times however, the wide scale deployment of such systems has to face potential negative environmental implications. These possible problems may be a strong barrier for further advancement of these systems in some consumers.
The potential environmental impacts associated with solar power can be classified according to numerous categories, some of which are land use impacts, ecological impacts, impacts to water, air and soil, and other impacts such as socioeconomic ones, and can vary greatly depending on the technology, which includes two broad categories: