[spookie]

Yeah have seen them. Down south of EU, in Portugal, they are buying land used for agriculture for these huge solar farms. And it is as sad as it is here. Surely, food is more important no? If they were placed in some deserts like in Spain... maybe they make sense, but these are very arable lands.

Wind is yeah... a whole other beast, although I do like what they have done in the Baltic and North seas.

[goobatrooba]

Seems like an economics problem? Is farmland cheaper than buying some otherwise less usable land? Or is there now much land available and a huge unmet energy need? And there are also models to use solar that still allow some farming below (e.g. strawberry, beans, greenhouses, ... But maybe not cost effective in this case, or the incentives don't align well.

Have you looked into why this model is chosen?

[natmaka]

Agrivoltaics (dual use of land for solar energy and agriculture) is gaining ground in many nations. This is heavy industry, the pace is slower than in most sectors (IT...).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics

[sehansen]

The EU as a whole has a pretty large oversupply of food, so using arable land for other things than agriculture is no big deal.