Solarpunk technology

Re transmission - yes there are increasing losses - but the OP is about cheap panels, so cheap electricity. It doesn't have to go so far, for example I'm thinking that the population in the Sahel is projected to increase a lot - that highest fertility in the world, as these regions develop they'll need electricity.
As for your non-forest, I'd call that scrubland, certainly not desert - which implies to me sand or bare stones, deserted by almost all life not just by people. Of course flowers can bloom even in the desert on occasional years after rains. Indeed the whole Sahara was much greener, only a few thousand years ago, and maybe could be again if we could work out the secret. But that's still a perturbation, and even with solar panels, there'd be plenty space left.