Trade-off between photovoltaic systems installation and agricultural practices on arable lands: an environmental and socio-economic impact analysis for Italy

• S. Sacchelli ^[1] ; G. Garegnani ^[3] ; F. Geri ^[2] ; G. Grilli ^[3] ; A. Paletto ^[4] ; P. Zambelli ^[3] ; M. Ciolli ^[2] ; D. Vettorato ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Florence

     University of Florence

     Firenze, Italia

     
  2. [2] University of Trento

     University of Trento

     Trento, Italia

     
  3. [3] European Academy of Bolzano. Italy
  4. [4] Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA), Rome. Italy

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• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 56, 2016, págs. 90-99
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The paper introduces and discusses an open-source spatial-based model (called r.green.solar) able to quantify the energy production from solar photovoltaic (PV) ground-mounted panels. Socio-economic and environmental impacts can be evaluated by the model. The model starts from the theoretical quantity of solar PV potential energy and estimates a reduction of total amount of energy based on legal, technical, recommended and economic constraints. Model outputs were used for a trade-off analysis between energy production and traditional crops for food/feed cultivation on not irrigated arable land. The model was tested at regional level for a Mediterranean context (Italy). The results confirm that the economic profitability of PV systems follows a north-south gradient, but the main impacts are related to local peculiarities – such as the disposal of not irrigated arable land and the presence of constraints, in particular the landscape maintenance, the morphological variables and the specialization index – and crop yields.