Nations across the world face the conundrum of needing to feed growing populations while simultaneously converting land into renewable energy production sites to avert catastrophic climate change. Agrivoltiacs, a dual-use concept that accommodates solar energy and agricultural production in one space, is a possible solution to this problem. With local opposition slowing the expansion of other renewable energy technologies, this study aims to determine whether agrivoltaics has an inherent advantage over ground-mounted solar regarding community acceptance. An online experiment was conducted to measure the individual attitude of Germans towards agrivoltiacs, using texts and images to introduce respondents to the concept. The results showed that agrivoltaics has higher community acceptance and support than ground-mounted solar. This makes it a viable alternative to other solar concepts, beyond its technical advantages. We argue that agrivoltaics as a socially benign technology would benefit from the solar industry and politics considering costs to local populations in their investment and policy decisionmaking.

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Meijs, Lucas, Berens, Guido
hdl.handle.net/2105/66081
Global Business & Sustainability
Rotterdam School of Management

M. von Wels (Maximilian). (2023, January 24). The Social Acceptance of Agrivoltaics. Global Business & Sustainability. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/66081