Recently, Merel Enserink together with Rudi van Etteger and Sven Stremke published their research on participatory design processes for solar power plants in the journal Energy Research & Social Science. The paper builds on the experiences from the EnergietuinenNL (in English ‘Energy Gardens’). As embedded designers/researchers, we gathered data on the interactions in the participatory design processes in three pilot projects in The...

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Agrivoltaics, the combined use of land for agricultural and electricity production, is gaining popularity due to its multifunctional use of space. In February 2024, Kitti Biró-Varga, together with Igor Sirnik and Sven Stremke, published their research on landscape user experiences of agrivoltaics in the Energy Research & Social Science journal. The publication resulted from research conducted in the NRGlab, part of Wageningen University...

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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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