LAND INTEGRATED PHOTOVOLTAICS. The New Energy Landscape of Europe

The European Union member states are committed to installing a total of 84,000 MW worth of photovoltaic systems by 2020, in order to help meet the target of 20% energy share from renewable sources, as mandated by Directive 2009/26/EC. Most importantly, a major portion of the new capacity will have to be installed as very large, open-field power plants. Much of the efforts to date by the photovoltaic industry and energy policy makers have been directed at creating efficient and economically viable models for the implementation of PV technology in the built environment. Today, however, growing public opposition to large-scale installations is becoming a significant obstacle to greatly expanding the photovoltaic installed capacity and to fulfilling the promises of independency from fossil fuels. If EU member states are to reach the target mandated by the European Commission, then social, aesthetic and cultural concerns – not just technical ones – must be addressed as well. Accordingly, the present concept for a demonstration of Land Integrated Photovoltaics aims at providing a culturally acceptable model for large-scale photovoltaic installations across the European landscape, in the context of the new energy policies of the European Union. The establishment of the City – from its very inception – is the result of a fundamental separation between places of consumption – located within the city limits – and places of production, where enough surpluses of raw materials and food are created to support city development. The impact of cities on places elsewhere, be it hinterlands or places far away – the so-called city footprint – is of extraordinary proportions. Yet the public at large, including policy makers and urban planners, seems utterly oblivious to the basic requirements of a functioning city: waste management and sewage treatment, air and water filtration, energy and heat generation, food production and processing are by and large still considered engineering annoyances to be hidden away or disregard altogether. As a result, the dislocation of production activities has only increased since the industrial revolution: over the past 150 years, the massive loss of natural land to the combined effect of relentless expansion of urban areas, modern infrastructures and extraction of minerals, resulted in a drastic reduction of biodiversity, in air and water pollution, and the depletion of natural resources. We believe that the key to reverting the current trend is the re-integration of places of production - including energy infrastructures - within the built environment. Historically, energy production has been based on a centralized model, where large power plants produce hundreds of megawatts in a single location. New energy technologies - such as photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal and wind micro-turbines - bring the promise of a decentralized model, with power produced at or near the point of consumption, with many advantages over the standard centralized model, in terms of both energy gains and reduced line losses. Interestingly, there is also a much lower pollution, noise, and visual impact associated to these technologies, allowing for the production plant to be near or in the city. Sunlight is a ubiquitous natural resource that can be found everywhere, yet current models of large-scale, open-field photovoltaic installations follow the paradigm of extractive industries - which depends on localized resources that only occur in small sporadic areas. The current study explores alternative logics of distribution that are not based exclusively on space efficiency or economy of scale; instead, it conceives of photovoltaic panels as a modular component distributed over large areas of land, enabling self-sufficient residential and productive districts. The project aims at identifying opportunities to supply the anthropized environment with solar energy technology systems, in ways that are more efficient, less costly and more sustainable than current energy production systems. Most importantly, the research attempts an investigation of both the cultural and the technological overlay of human activities, in order to identify strategies of occupations that are compatible with preexisting uses and that respect the natural vocation of the land.