Modeling of Landscape for the Integration of Agrivoltaics Using a GIS Approach.

Italy, with the highest number of UNESCO heritage sites worldwide and among the countries with the most ambitious renewable (i.e., photovoltaic) energy targets in Europe, is a living lab for experimenting with contradictions and synergies between a traditional idea of landscape preservation, and the new challenges offered by the introduction of photovoltaics in the landscape. The agrivoltaics has been emerging as a novel paradigm of integrated PV, making dual and synergic use of land for agriculture and PV generation. However, the design of agrivoltaic systems follows criteria that do not explicitly consider the landscape features. The landscape preservation is mainly conceived as protection of certain areas, and many projects only consider normative limits to realize the systems. The objective of this research work has been to develop a GIS-based tool able to implement the commonly descriptive approach used to address the integration of agrivoltaics into the landscape pattern. Metrics have been properly defined and evaluated to describe the landscape structure, its composition and spatial arrangement. They are applied to describe single landscape elements by such features as size, shape, number or for whole landscape by describing the arrangement of landscape elements. A quantitative analysis of the landscape, given by this spatially explicit approach, will provide preliminary inputs for the design of the agrivoltaic patterns in order to achieve the most relevant landscape integration criteria based on archetypes. This GIS tool is targeted at the policy makers as well as PV project developers.