Land concentration and large renewable energy projects

This paper examines how land ownership concentration shapes the deployment of large-scale renewable energy projects across six European countries (Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands). Using a 5×5 km grid-cell framework with cadastral parcel data, we show that cells with a higher share of area in large parcels (= 10 ha) are substantially more likely to host mega photovoltaic (PV) plants (= 50 ha), with a standardized semi-elasticity of 68% in the pooled sample, consistent across all six countries. Land concentration also drives aggregate solar deployment: a one-standard-deviation increase raises expected PV hectares within a grid cell by 62%, an effect driven almost entirely by the mega-plant margin. By contrast, the effect on wind parks is weaker and heterogeneous, consistent with wind requiring less contiguous land assembly than solar. A specificity test and decomposition analysis corroborate that the assembly mechanism operates specifically at the mega-plant margin, and a horse race between cadastral concentration and farm operational size establishes that ownership, not farming scale, is the operative mechanism. A finer 500 m grid within-municipality analysis corroborates the effect of land concentration on mega PV plants and further reveals that it is attenuated in irrigated areas, where higher agricultural rents raise landowner reservation values. We rationalize these patterns with a conceptual framework in which solar assembly requires unanimous consent from a set of landowners whose number falls with parcel size, while wind requires only a subset. Our findings reveal that land ownership structure is a decisive factor in the energy transition: fragmentation impedes large-scale deployment, while concentration enables it but channels its benefits toward a few large landowners, potentially deepening rural grievances and local opposition.