ABSTRACT
Decades of successful solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Pacific Rim nations and around the world have proven it to be a viable renewable energy solution with numerous benefits. However, PV projects have shown various weaknesses and challenges such as inefficient land use, land-use conflicts, physical constraints, and political and economical uncertainty. Planners today confront a green dilemma in which energy production, green spaces, farmlands, space for recreation, and urban development are often mutually exclusive land uses. This chapter offers insight into leveraging opportunities from an emerging field of research that seeks to co-locate solar with symbiotic land uses. We discuss solar co-location through a triple-bottom-line lens to highlight the economic, environmental, and social tradeoffs involved and explore how this strategy can increase land-use efficiency and produce co-benefits. This chapter focuses on two popular co-location concepts. We aim to highlight how brightfields (BF)—PV paired with brownfields—and agrivoltaics (APV)—PV paired with agriculture—can build upon the strengths and opportunities of conventional PV and overcome its weaknesses and challenges. This chapter draws on six case studies to demonstrate how tradeoff decisions related to planning and design factors can be assessed in real-world scenarios.
