Landscape-technology fit: The missing link to society in renewable energy landscape development

Abstract

A sustainable energy transition is inevitably linked to landscape change triggered by renewable energy infrastructure. This is a topic where society's view is often subject to other interests. This article provides insights into people's preferences in the context of evaluating scenarios from different landscapes and different renewable energy infrastructure. Thanks to the innovative hybrid choice model approach, not only evaluated preferences but also latent constructs behind these preferences could be identified and analyzed. Perceived suitability of landscape and technology (landscape-technology fit), derived from suitability between place and technology (place-technology fit), was identified as a significant moderator of respondents' preferences and is predicted to a relevant extent by both meanings related to landscapes and meanings related to renewable energy infrastructure, as well as exposure to landscapes and energy infrastructure. The results suggest that the perceived fit of implemented technology and landscape is relevant to people's evaluation. When the development is perceived as a good fit, people are more likely to select scenarios that represent this combination of landscape and energy infrastructure, and vice versa. It is emphasized that these results do not indicate priority areas for renewable energy infrastructure, but rather highlight landscapes with potential for social conflict and can help to better integrate people's preferences from a landscape perspective into spatial approaches to renewable energy infrastructure development.