Agrivoltaics as a win-win for rural regions? Energy and environmental justice perspectives across Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands

Agrivoltaics integrates agricultural production with renewable electricity generation on the same land, addressing land-use conflicts while offering benefits for both sectors. However, as with other renewable energy technologies, its implementation risks reinforcing existing socioeconomic inequalities, such as unequal distribution of benefits, exclusion from decision-making, and marginalization of underrepresented voices. This could result in social and environmental harm, including landscape changes. To ensure a just energy transition, the implementation of agrivoltaics must tackle these challenges, balancing decarbonization goals with equity and inclusivity considerations. This study investigates experts' perceptions on the justice implications of agrivoltaics with insights from four European regions across Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Building on in-depth semi-structured interviews, this study conducts a comparative analysis of the perceived justice implications of agrivoltaics by applying an environmental and energy justice framework. The findings indicate that while agrivoltaics is perceived to offer economic benefits like additional revenue for farmers and indirect environmental benefits such as improved soil quality, it also raises social and ecological challenges, with benefits often favoring large-scale farmers, landowners, and investors over small farmers and local communities. Excluding small farmers, residents, and ecosystems from decision-making processes exacerbates power imbalances. Early stakeholder involvement can mitigate negative impacts and foster public support by empowering communities. Local engagement, energy communities, financial contributions, and biodiversity restoration efforts are key to restoring fairness. The findings highlight the need for justice-oriented policy frameworks and regulations to ensure an equitable distribution of benefits, inclusive decision-making, and appropriate compensation for any environmental or social harm resulting from agrivoltaics implementation. Future research directions should prioritize further analyses of the restorative justice principle within agrivoltaics. Emphasis should be placed on assessing its capacity to mitigate environmental and social externalities, thereby supporting a more just transition toward renewable energy in rural areas.