Albania allows agrisolar, wind power plants on pastureland

Demand for solar and wind power plants prompted Albania to adopt a law allowing such installations on pastureland. Photovoltaic panels must be mounted at least five meters above ground.

A tenth of Albania’s surface is pastureland, of which up to 340,000 hectares are in state ownership and between 60,000 and 80,000 is private. The country has just abolished the ban on the construction of solar and wind power plants in the category, Scan TV reported.

The Kuvendi – the Parliament of Albania – changed the Law on the Pasture Fund. Lawmaker Edona Bilali from the ruling Socialist Party of Albania submitted the bill, citing numerous requests for photovoltaic and wind installations.

She noted that the fund actually covers a bit over 506,000 hectares, which is 5,060 square kilometers. In the solar power segment, PV panels now need to be mounted at least five meters above the surface to allow cattle grazing.

Of note, there is still not a single wind turbine in operation in Albania.

Fragmentation of pastureland in Albania is biggest challenge for management

Agrisolar or agrivoltaics is the combination of agriculture and solar power on the same land. Such installations provide shading, protection from hail as well as precipitation and temperature control, which is beneficial for many plants.

But more and more developers have been advertising their projects as agrivoltaic, also called agriphotovoltaic, even if they just let sheep or other livestock graze between the arrays. Operators would need to cut vegetation on grassland and shrubby areas anyway.

Bilali: Dual use is a win-win scenario for the domestic economy

In a narrow sense, agrisolar plants are the ones on supports, which allow farming below. Namely, conventional PV facilities are often criticized for occupying large areas. Costs are higher that way than for ground-mounted solar power plants, so energy companies and food producers are developing optimal solutions, often case by case. Some promising solutions are emerging, such as transparent and flexible panels for glasshouses.

Bilali said the most important challenge for managing the so-called pasture fund is the fragmentation of plots.

“One of the potential advantages of rural and mountainous lands is their use for renewable energy through photovoltaic panels. Given that Albania has a significant amount of pasture land available and aims to increase renewable energy production, the use of pastures for both agricultural production and livestock and for the production of renewable energy would be a win-win scenario for our country’s economy. The use of photovoltaic panels is part of the efforts to promote green energy and to utilize unused natural spaces for energy purposes,” Bilali has underscored.

Procedure is responsibility of municipal authorities

In addition to the dual use of pastureland with the energy sector, the new Albanian law also allows the development of facilities for social, healthcare, sport and tourism purposes in some areas.

Local authorities are tasked with conducting the procedure. When national councils for land and water approve tourism development, the land won’t be formally repurposed but its use would be updated in the cadastre, according to the law.

In some countries of the region that Balkan Green Energy News tracks, like Slovenia and Romania, governments are also developing regulations for the agrisolar concept. In some other cases, the option is left to the market.