PHOTOVOLTAICS 2011 - PHOTOVOLTAICS | FORMS | LANDSCAPES - How to use Photovoltaics for shaping performative landscapes

PHOTOVOLTAICS FOR SHAPING PERFORMATIVE LANDSCAPES.

The deployment of photovoltaics continues to increase rapidly, with the total power installed doubling every year. Today most of these installations are on roofs, and this will slow the rate of cost reduction since even if module prices decrease substantially, installation costs are almost constant.

Achieving the neededlarge scale integration of photovoltaics into our energy system will therefore require large-scale deployment beyond the building scale. Large scale “open-field” installations, in the multi-MW size (at least one squared kilometre of photovoltaic modules), will become part of our landscapes.

This represents a new kind of “productive” land-use, which is currently not encouraged and even discouraged in some cases. In fact, today, photovoltaic systems are just “added” on the landscape, using land suitable for other traditional societal uses (agriculture being the obvious example), and this way to use photovoltaics in the landscape is not accepted by the public.

How to make in the future photovoltaic large open field installations acceptable or even desirable, also in comparison with other traditional land uses? What if these installations are seen as a new form of “integration”? What if we think of photovoltaic systems as elements of a new “performative landscape”?

This approach leads to the challenge: ?How to design a thousand of square kilometres of photovoltaics??
If we want to avoid that such systems are just “put” on the ground and risk of rejection by the public, we have to re-think how to do open-field deployment in the 50 to 100 MW scale. In fact, these installations will have to be designed as an integral part of a “performative landscape”, requiring a truly multidisciplinary approach.

The event will highlight the interaction of photovoltaic systems with buildings and landscapes, by showing how architects intend to take up this challenge.