This paper addresses the concern that despite the technical feasibility of renewable energy technologies and their contribution to climate-friendly power production, public opposition can be a hurdle for new installations of renewable energy installations, including agrivoltaic operations. This study assesses citizens’ perceptions of the Agrophotovoltaics (APV) technology by applying the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) concept.

In the workshop conducted in this paper, citizens’ perception on APV before building the first pilot plant was investigated to analyze relevant aspects for the innovation process and its framework at an early stage of the technology development process. This paper describes the impact of APV on landscape, biodiversity, economy, and on the requirements for regulatory framework.

The purpose of this guide is to help Michigan communities meet the challenge of becoming solar- ready by addressing SES within their planning policies and zoning regulations. This document illustrates how various scales and configurations of photovoltaic SES fit into landscape patterns ranging between rural, suburban, and urban. This guide will aid in community development and guidance related to public policy decisions related to solar energy development, which often includes agrivoltaic operations and development as well.

This study includes discussion on key benefits, tensions, and paradigms influencing farmers and farming communities’ decisions to host utility-scale solar generation. The first goal of this study is to develop a conceptual map of stakeholder interaction(s) around utility-scale solar deployment on agricultural lands. The second goal includes the critique of agrivoltaic solutions that fail to consider stakeholder priorities as technological fixes.

Scientists and engineers have recommended agrivoltaics to solve conflicts between land use for energy versus agriculture. The study discusses and focuses on stakeholder perceptions and paradigms about using agricultural land, particularly prime farmland. The study covers the question of how does the existing context of energy and agricultural systems affect solar siting, and how are stakeholders interacting to coproduce decisions?

The results of this study provide a conceptual map of stakeholder interaction on solar development on agricultural lands and argues that agrivoltaics are currently treated as a “technological fix.”

The purpose of this guide is to help Michigan communities meet the challenge of becoming solar ready by addressing SES within their planning policies and zoning regulations. This document illustrates how various scales and configurations of photovoltaic SES fit into landscape patterns ranging between rural, suburban, and urban.

This thesis lays the groundwork for the broader realization of agrivoltaics by identifying the socio-political opportunities and barriers to development. Combining theoretical frameworks on technology diffusion and social acceptance of renewable energy with expert perspectives, this work seeks to understand, address, and accommodate the role of society and policy in combining solar energy and food systems. Three empirical studies are presented that first investigate the impediments to farmer adoption of the technology, then explore the challenges to development from the perspective of solar industry professionals, and conclude by outlining a comprehensive legal framework for agrivoltaics in the U.S. The findings identify the key socio-political opportunities for agrivoltaics include: the retention of agricultural land and rural interests, and increased local level acceptance of solar development. The key barriers include: ensuring long term agricultural productivity is not compromised, and subnational localized zoning strategies.

This article examines prospective challenges and opportunities for scaling up negative emissions technologies (NETs) through examining how decarbonization practices are evolving in one particular landscape: the Imperial Valley in southeast California, a desert landscape engineered for industrial agriculture.

The contributions of this special issue address at least one political phenomenon in the context of sustainable energy transformation: populism, post-truth politics, and local resistance.

Despite a global push in the development and implementation of widespread alternative energy use, significant disparities exist across given nation-states. These disparities reflect both technical and economic factors, as well as the social, political, and ecological gaps between how communities see energy development and national/global policy goals. Known as the “local-national gap”, many nations struggle with fostering meaningful conversations about the role of alternative energy technologies within communities. Mitigation of this problem first requires understanding the distribution of existing alternative energy technologies at the local level of policymaking.

Wind and solar generation require at least 10 times as much land per unit of power produced than coal- or natural gas-fired power plants, including land disturbed to produce and transport the fossil fuels. Additionally, wind and solar generation are located where the resource availability is best instead of where is most convenient for people and infrastructure, since their “fuel” can’t be transported like fossil fuels.

To analyze public perception of coal and solar energy and support for public policy that assists in a just energy transition, we conducted a mail survey in the summer of 2018 among a random sample of residents in three regions of the United States: Houston, TX, a large city with close ties to the oil industry, Burlington, VT, a medium-sized city that is solely powered by renewable energy sources, and Saline County, IL, a rural area with a long history of coal mining.