Agrivoltaics: planning and property law challenges in combining renewable energy and agriculture

Solar energy is a leading mature renewable energy technology crucial to achieving rapid decarbonisation. Cleared, flat agricultural land with high solar penetration often offers ideal conditions to develop large-scale solar projects. To rapidly deploy utility-scale solar, the Australian Federal Government has mapped 41 Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) to connect new renewable energy infrastructure, generation, storage, and high-voltage transmission infrastructure. The REZs cover large swathes of agricultural land creating potential land use conflicts, as well as disruption to rural communities. Agrivoltaics, the co-location of agricultural and renewable energy production, seeks to mitigate land use competition, enhance solar generation, and amplify the resilience and value of agricultural activities. However, there are property and planning law challenges to the co-location of solar energy farms on agricultural land in Australia. In this article, we examine these challenges and explore potential policy and regulatory reform to bolster an Australian agrivoltaics sector.