Agricultural Landscapes and Agrivoltaic Systems: The Key Role of Landscape Planning

Abstract

The spread of renewable energy sources (RES) is nowadays a key goal at European level, being “decarbonization” crucial to counterbalance climate change. However, current push towards energy transition is opening new questions, such as the need of balancing the positive environmental impacts arising from the spread of the RES and the landscape transformations it may entail. This contribution, with reference to the Italian context, explores the role of landscape planning tools in ensuring a proper balance between landscape quality and increase of energy generation from RES, with specific reference to agrivoltaic systems (APV), providing hints for their location, according to landscape quality, and criteria for designing APV tailored to the peculiar features of the heterogeneous agricultural landscapes.