Energy landscape research :lessons from Southern Europe? : review essay (original) (raw)
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Energy landscape research – Lessons from Southern Europe ?
2017
a Institute for Social Research, York University, Toronto, Canada (*corresponding author: B. Greer-Wootten, e-mail: bryngw@yorku.ca) The Moravian Geographical Reports does not often publish Book Reviews (let alone essays), but this new book on “Renewable Energies and European Landscapes”1 is a well-deserved exception to the rule! It is an edited collection of essays gathered together by Frolova (University of Granada, Spain), Prados (University of Sevilla, Spain) and Nada� (Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement: CIRED –CNRS, France), based on a series of Workshops organised under the auspices of several agencies (from both Spain and France) in the period from 2007 to the present. In particular, the Spanish Network on Renewable Energies and Landscape (RESERP) began in 2010, with an emphasis on wind and solar power. Published by a well–respected agency, the question can be clearly stated at the outset: Do the editors fulfil their ambitious agenda of...
Review Essay. Energy landscape research – Lessons from Southern Europe?
Moravian Geographical Reports, 2017
The Moravian Geographical Reports does not often publish Book Reviews (let alone essays), but this new book on "Renewable Energies and European Landscapes" 1 is a well-deserved exception to the rule! It is an edited collection of essays gathered together by Frolova
Renewable Energies and European Landscapes Lessons from Southern European Cases
Abstract Wind farms in Portugal have spread enormously during the last decade and are transforming social and physical landscapes. The map of classifi ed áreas in the country shows a great overlap between main sites of potential wind development and protected areas. Starting from case studies in different regions where wind power has been recently developed, we approach issues of landscape management, protection, fruition, and how they are intertwining with energy policies. Through ethnographic lenses, our aim is to understand how global issues are perceived at local level, selecting as case studies projects involving protected areas in Portugal.
Hungarian Geographical Bulletin
Landscape quality has become a fundamental issue in the development of renewable energy (henceforth abbreviated RE) projects. Rapid technological advances in RE production and distribution, coupled with changing policy frameworks, bring specific challenges during planning in order to avoid degradation of landscape quality. The current work provides a comprehensive review on RE landscapes and the impacts of RE systems on landscape for most European countries. It is based on a review by an interdisciplinary international team of experts of empirical research findings on landscape impacts of RE from thirty-seven countries that have participated in the COST Action TU1401 Renewable Energy and Landscape Quality (RELY).
This chapter features a case study in the southern Italian region of Puglia (Apulia), the rural area of Alta Murgia, which is partly included within the perimeter of the fi rst National Rural Park in Italy . We focus on the process of solar PV power development in these agricultural areas since the fi rst Italian feed-in tariff system came into force (2005)(2006)(2007). Fundamental to our purpose is to highlight the signifi cant impacts of the political forces embodied in the planning process of these renewable energy projects. We consider not only the impacts on the socioeconomic development of the whole area over the last decade but also those on the landscape features and values that sustain and enable this development. National and regional renewable energy policies, on one hand, and the National Park Plan and Regulations, on the other, have engendered dramatically different consequences for the agricultural lands located inside and outside the perimeter of the protected area. The argument developed is that these two radically different approaches to the process of planning energy projects effectively reinforce the physical and symbolic gap existing between so-called particularly worthy landscapes and ordinary everyday landscapes (of energy). We highlight that the process of solar PV plant planning and development in the areas surrounding the Park has been essentially dominated and led by a sort of "site counter-logic." This actually resulted in a "counter-site logic." In the conclusion, we emphasize the potential for the planning process of green energy projects to act as an open-air laboratory for experimenting with a new integrated approach to energy, as both a notion and a natural fact.
Renewable energy policy and landscape management in Andalusia, Spain: The facts
Energy Policy, 2010
Renewable energy has developed spectacularly in Spain since the European Union started a process of energy policy reform. A review of Spanish State legislation on renewable energies confirms that the success in installing renewable energy is attributable to public aid. Andalusia is one of the autonomous communities, which has simultaneously developed the legal framework and very successfully implemented the introduction of renewable power. When implementing the central government's policy, the Andalusian regional government prioritised increases in both surface cover by wind and solar plants (thermal and photovoltaic energy) and in the number of companies involved. However, this development of renewable energies took place without any proper integration into regional spatial and landscape planning. This paper explores renewable power implementation in Andalusia through regulatory measures put in place over the last decade to develop renewable energy systems and the way they can be managed alongside planning issues. The location of large-scale renewable plants has had consequences for territory in the socio-political context of renewable energy promotion. The main findings focus on renewable energy plant sprawl throughout rural areas in Andalusia with no clear effect on landscape management and no firm backing from the local population.
Sustainability
Landscape and energy are an inseparable and innovative binomial because of the challenges they imply and being the factors we use to measure the quality of our habitat. Presenting the report “Wind Energy and Landscape. Guidelines for a suitable installation in Catalonia”, which involved research into the methodology for installing wind farms, this article presents a critical reflection on the possible spatial, ethical, and aesthetic effects of energy transition. Landscape design interprets the convergence of territorial values with the innovation of an energy system: it is not measured on a geographical scale, but draws from geography the sense of the overwriting of everyday places, giving them sense, orientation, meaning, and narrative. The research involves ecology, society, nature, and culture. Methodologically, the approach is reversed: rather than designing a project for the correct installation of wind power plants, the project for the wind landscape is understood as new conte...