Which electricity generation technology occupies the most land per unit of energy generated?
🌍 All types of technologies have an impact on land use, both in the extraction of materials and in their installation. This means that, for example, a photovoltaic plant not only requires land for its installation but also "uses" the land where the materials necessary for its manufacture have been extracted.
🌱 The land use of each technology is important because it can affect the availability of land for other purposes and biodiversity.
If you look at the image, you can see that:
✅ Ground-mounted photovoltaics require 6 to 10 times more land than rooftop installations.
✅ The impact of wind energy is greater than that of photovoltaic energy in many cases, although this depends on the use of the land beneath the wind turbines.
✅ Cadmium-based photovoltaics have a smaller impact than silicon-based ones.
The deployment of renewables can also have a significant impact on the landscape.
☀️ Once again, rooftop photovoltaics allow minimizing this impact without the need to slow down the adoption of green energy.
