Innovative Land Planning to Facilitate the Renewable Energy Transition

Dear Colleagues,

The world needs at least a nine-fold increase in renewable energy production to meet the Paris Agreement climate goals and much more to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The rapid transition to renewable energy will be good for people and the planet. However, the land-use footprint for this buildout will be large because renewable energy infrastructure requires a lot of land—especially onshore wind and large-scale solar installations. This raises the potential for land-use conflicts over renewable energy. There are also social, policy and financing barriers that will need to be addressed as well. A major obstacle for aligning renewable energy deployment with emissions targets is managing the necessary land acquisition and potential environmental and social impacts given the large land requirements needed for siting renewable projects. We need to ensure the renewable energy transition is grounded in proactive science-based land use planning and effective regulations as well as innovative financial incentives that will guarantee that renewable energy is deployed in ways that support goals for climate, nature, and people.

This Special Issue seeks examples that deliver innovative approaches grounded in leading science, partnerships, public policy, and market-based approaches that help catalyze a rapid renewable energy buildout that safeguards nature and supports an equitable transition for communities. For this Special Issue, we are interested in contributions that link expedited deployment with planning, policy and innovative finance, through either empirical research or conceptual/theoretical works, including but not limited to:

• Innovative planning examples that guide expedited development;
• Novel approaches that integrate development into existing land use i.e., agrivoltaics;
• Planning examples that provide examples of how to design renewable energy “go to zones”;
• Policy mechanisms that drive development to low-conflict sites;
• Novel mechanisms to use built infrastructure for renewables that ultimately avoid land conversion;
• Participatory planning that captures social/cultural values and ensures an equitable energy transition;
• Financial mechanisms that help prioritize degraded and converted land for development;
• Examples of how existing energy planning, i.e., long-term electricity resource planning, can be adapted to include environmental and social values and drive low-conflict siting;
• Examples of how access to data and decision support tools can expediate renewable energy deployment.

Contributions at the intersection of land use change science and innovative finance or environmental policy are especially welcome, but contributions from other human-environment fields that emphasize the importance of local community social values and livelihoods are also welcome. Geographic diversity in contributions is also desired.

If prospective authors want some feedback before preparing their manuscripts, proposed titles and abstracts (250 words) can be submitted by 29 February 2024 to the Editorial Office at land@mdpi.com for feedback.

Dr. Joseph Kiesecker
Dr. Shivaprakash Nagaraju
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• renewable energy
• land use change
• energy sprawl
• impact mitigation
• landscape level planning
• equitable energy transition