Planning of renewable energy plants: evaluation of the development potential on the minor Italian islands

In order to mitigate the increasingly frequent and intense effects of climate change, the transformation of the energy production system is imperative. Among the obstacles that arise in the energy transition process from a system based on fossil fuels to one based on the exploitation of renewable energy sources, integration with environmental and landscape constraints plays a fundamental role. According to the literature, the energy transition is a soil consumption phenomenon because the PV plants and wind can subtract soil from agricultural activities. For this reason, this thesis develops a scalable methodology for assessing wind, rooftop PV and, Agrophotovoltaic systems’ technical potential based on a spatial energy planning approach within the open-software QGIS. To do that, the method analyzes the suitability of the areas considered in compliance with the in-force regulations and the Corine Land Cover classification for the Agrophotovoltaic systems. In particular, the Agrophotovoltaic technical potential has been investigated for avoiding soil consumption and promoting integration between RES production and agricultural activities. After that, it evaluates the RES potentials using the software WaSP and UMEP (i.e., wind resource and solar, respectively). This methodology has been applied to the minor non-interconnected Italian islands showing that the available technical potential can contribute, in most cases, more than the 100% of the local energy consumption. However, the results show also that the current regulatory framework should be shaped to support energy transition.