Solar photovoltaic energy infrastructures, land use and sociocultural context in Portugal

Abstract

Energy infrastructures co-evolve with and are enacted and acted upon by not only technical but also regulatory and institutional factors, as well as sociocultural contexts. As solar energy plants require access to land and the electric grid, the recent uptick in solar energy infrastructure features interplay with local specificities. This article thus examines the uptake of solar energy in Portugal at both the national and local scales. The purpose is to contribute to a timely debate on critical renewabilities and to provide valuable insights for the future rollout of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in Portugal. The study demonstrates that solar energy policy measures not only show some start-stop aspects of the utility-scale solar PV roll-out, but have also tended to favour large companies, rather than community or individual operators. Three case studies point to a range of public attitudes regarding solar PV roll-out and its underlying drivers that are locally influenced by land use and sociocultural contexts, apparently more so than by concerns of low-carbon energy transitions. A key point for future solar energy transitions is, therefore, that local communities' concerns should be understood and approached cross-sectorally. Furthermore, the intersection of energy transitions and justice must be considered from a multi-scalar, multi-sited and cross-sectoral perspective.

Sustainable development goal interactions for a just transition: multi-scalar solar energy rollout in Portugal

“…The country has been one of the leaders on renewable energy, building hydropower and then wind power (Fernandes and Ferreira 2014). Despite financial constraints during and after the 2008-2015 economic crisis, Portugal launched a Carbon Neutrality Roadmap 2050 stating its commitment to renewable energy goals in 2019 (Silva and Sareen 2020). 2 As Table 2 shows, total solar PV in Portugal grew steadily from 174 megawatts (MW) in 2011 to 673 MW in 2018, with a jump to 1030 MW in 2020 (DGEG (Directorate General for Energy and Geology) 2020).…”

“…It phased in a market-based mechanism to auction grid capacity at specific nodes for solar PV capacity. These solar auctions set world records in July 2019 and August 2020, averaging below 40% of annual average wholesale electricity market prices for a total of approximately 2 GW of awarded projects across 36 lots (Silva and Sareen 2020). When installed by 2021-2022, these will more than triple installed solar capacity in Portugal.…”

A Critical Framework to Develop Human-Centric Positive Energy Districts: Towards Justice, Inclusion, and Well-Being

“…In fact, recent research on smart cities and associated policies and initiatives towards decentralisation and sustainability, has been demonstrating how these are still often performed within business-as-usual, neoliberal capitalist, rationales, and associated green growth logics (Levenda et al, 2020). The implications of perpetuating this type of rationale, namely in terms of the reproduction of social inequalities and environmental destruction, have been increasingly pointed out by the so-called critical turn in social sciences and humanities (SSH) energy research (see Batel, 2020;Silva and Sareen, 2021). Such an approach can then give useful insights to develop a critical framework on what should be human-centric PEDs, what this should mean, and how it should be materialised.…”

Why IEEE Xplore Matters for Research Trend Analysis in the Energy Sector

“…The authors' analysis shows that California's path to microgrids is mostly driven by legislative and regulatory pressures toward clean energy and symbiotic relationships between regime influencers and the microgrid niche. The authors of [7] analyze the spread of solar energy in Portugal, both nationally and locally. They note that the energy transition must be implemented in a multiscale, multilateral, and intersectoral perspective.…”