Integration of renewable energy infrastructure in the European coastal landscape: Three case studies

Abstract

The great development that renewable energy has shown as a central strategy of the so-called energy transition has caused significant impacts on the territory. These range from conflicts with other economic activities to the invasion of landscapes of great cultural value. These intersections, with certain particularities, are also seen in certain coastal contexts in which new technologies are being implemented both at sea and on land to obtain energy. Attending to this specific context from its spatial dimension on the part of architecture and from a broad notion of the idea of landscape, can allow important learnings for the energy project. This paper presents an analysis of three case studies as relevant examples of the emerging processes of European coastal occupation: the Middelgrunden wind farm, the Mutriku wave plant and the tidal infrastructure of the Rance estuary. The research makes a rereading of its spatial aspects from an architectural perspective and defines strategies that allow the coastal energy infrastructure to be related to its specific landscape and sociocultural context, thus proposing transversal relationships that can be taken into account in multidisciplinary integration processes for future scenarios of energy at the coast.