Fields for food or electricity: revisiting spatial analysis to evaluate land-use priorities for solar siting in Swedish agricultural landscapes

Ground-mounted photovoltaics (GMPV) expansion on agricultural land in Sweden is frequently contested, with several cases settled in court. Analysis of recent rulings and permit applications shows that authorities are determining how to prioritize vital societal interests in food production and renewable-energy deployment while a coherent legal framework remains under development. Developers, meanwhile, concentrate proposals on agricultural land near grid infrastructure, neglecting concerns about food security as well as values and identities embedded in existing landscapes. The landscape-governance lens reveals how landscapes emerge from socio-cultural processes and how conflicts around GMPV are signs of misalignments between socio-technical development and locally anchored land-use preferences. To explore alternatives aligning with social priorities in southern Sweden, we assess the potential for agrivoltaics and GMPV on rewetted agricultural peatlands through a scenario-based GIS approach. By translating the divergent reference frames of developers and regional authorities into parallel land-constraint scenarios, we show that these frames result in sharply different solar capacities (0–172 GW) and consequences for land use. Further, evaluating distance to grid against socio-economic factors shows its unsuitability as a siting criterion. Combining our spatial assessment approach with participatory iterative engagement could empirically capture land-use expectations and landscape values.