Twenty years into the energy transition, landscape is finally entering the main stage. Landscape is slowly maturing from object – frequently used to oppose renewables – to an active agent. In our new book The Power of Landscape we illustrate how landscapes affect the quality of life around the planet. How landscapes mirror our success and failures. And how landscapes provide clear answers to many questions associated with the grand...

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Recently, Merel Enserink together with Rudi van Etteger and Sven Stremke published their research on a co-designed solar power plant in the journal Solar Energy. The research relates to the work in the project In My Backyard Please and is part of the PhD research of Merel. In this paper they discuss the effects of using a full-scale prototype to increase local understanding of the impact of landscape change related to solar power plant...

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Multifunctional solar energy landscapes are quickly advancing, leading to several examples in the Netherlands where solar energy is combined with agricultural production. The aim of this type of multifunctionality, often termed ‘agrivoltaics’, is reduce land use pressure by providing synergies between crop and PV panel. The team, consisting of Igor Sirnik, Dirk Oudes and Sven Stremke, studied several novel cases of agrivoltaics in the...

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If we want to continue with onshore solar and wind farms – which is necessary – then the quality of projects will need to improve because the support of citizens and politicians in the Netherlands is eroding. As society we know better and better what kind of renewable energy projects we would like, but we get more and more of what we don’t want. It is about time to realize more quality in energy projects and pay more attention...

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In August 2022, the article Towards a typology of solar energy landscapes: Mixed-production, nature based and landscape inclusive solar power transitions written by Dirk Oudes, Adri van den Brink and Sven Stremke was published (open access) in Energy Research and Social Science. In the paper, a typology of multifunctional solar power plants (solar parks) is articulated based upon a study of 20 European cases. The typology consists of four...

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Sven Stremke, Paolo Picchi & Dirk Oudes curated an exhibition on energy landscapes for the 2021 Dutch Landschapstriennale. The (online) poster exhibition and the 3min video pitches of the selected 9 projects from young researchers can be accessed here. Over the past years, these young designers conducted outstanding research in dedicated design studios and Master thesis projects both at Wageningen University and the Amsterdam Academy of...

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