Scaling agrivoltaics: planning, legal, and market pathways to readiness

Abstract Agrivoltaics, which integrate solar photovoltaics with diverse agricultural activities on shared land, can play a pivotal role in advancing global decarbonization and agricultural innovation. Several European Union (EU) countries, states in the United States (US), and Asia Pacific nations are increasingly targeting the development of agrivoltaics. This includes Italy’s €1.7 billion investment to deploy 1.04 gigawatts (GW) of agrivoltaics and the US allocation of USD 75 million to agrivoltaics market incentives. In Australia, large-scale agrivoltaics are currently hindered by policy inertia, legal gaps, and absent market incentives to address emerging tensions between agricultural land use and renewable energy developments. In New South Wales (NSW), Australia, the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap aims to develop 12 GW of new renewable energy capacity and 2 GW of long-duration storage by establishing Renewable Energy Zones, primarily situated within rural areas. In response, the potential agricultural land alienation and fragmentation has prompted several planning and community engagement inquiries between 2022 and 2024. When regulated effectively, agrivoltaics presents a solution to clarify, protect, and enable agricultural landholder rights, stimulate planning policy innovation, and activate new energy market mechanisms. As a nascent socio-technical practice in NSW, agrivoltaics projects are developing iteratively due to the absence of agrivoltaic-specific planning policy, regulation, market incentives, and legal frameworks. This structural failure creates barriers to agrivoltaics scaling and may undermine social acceptance. This study conducts the first scaling readiness analysis of agrivoltaics in NSW, an emerging Australian state in agrivoltaic grazing practices, examining policy, regulation, market settings, and legal agreements creating obstacles and uncertainties. It presents key regulatory and legal reform recommendations to support scaling a commercially viable agrivoltaics sector promoting good grazing practices and enhancing social outcomes.