Agrivoltaics soon allowed everywhere in South Tyrol?

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A few weeks ago I wrote here that South Tyrol stonewalls agrivoltaics — and that "landscape protection," as a justification, is largely hypocrisy (Why we should use our fields twice, Solar panels in surplus — and we call them too ugly). Now the Administrative Court in Bolzano has basically said the same thing. Just in legal Latin.

On 15 June 2026, the Regional Administrative Court, Bolzano Section, struck down the province's core criteria for agri-PV. The word the judges use: "arbitrari" — arbitrary.

What it was about

With Decree of the Provincial Governor No. 18/2025, the province had ruled that agri-PV is allowed only where two conditions are met at the same time: the plot lies no more than 75 metres above the level of the Adige and Isarco rivers — and has a slope of no more than 10 percent.

Sounds technical. In reality it's an almost blanket ban.

The plaintiff was a farmer from Lazfons. And he won.

"Arbitrary" — the word came to me on first reading

When I first read the rule, my thought was: why 75 metres? Why not 60, why not 100? Why 10 percent slope and not 12?

That's exactly what the court now asks too. The province couldn't explain on what technical grounds the threshold sits at precisely 75 metres and 10 percent. Administrative discretion, the ruling says, must "never tip over into mere arbitrariness." Whoever restricts renewables has to justify it with concrete data — not with numbers that sound good.

That's the heart of it. A province may set siting rules. It just may not dress up bans as rules and hope nobody asks.

The landscape argument doesn't hold

Of course the objection comes immediately: but the landscape! Yes, maybe. You can see panels.

But you can see silage bales too. Those white plastic sausages on every second meadow — are they pretty? And hail nets over half of South Tyrol's orchards, grey and taut for kilometres — nobody gets worked up about those. An apple orchard under panels looks no different from one under hail nets.

I'm not talking theory here. I have PV on greenhouses myself, and underneath grow raspberries, strawberries, cherries, blueberries. Power on top, fruit below, the same area. That's not a research fantasy — that's my farm. Dual use works. I harvest it.

Why I'm still cautious

A ruling is not a new law. The provincial government has to revise the rules, and I have no idea what it will come up with. The honest option would be: clean, technically justified rules. The dishonest one: the same ban in new packaging, with different numbers that are just as unfounded.

And above it all looms Rome. The national Testo Unico FER (Law 4/2026) obliges the regions and autonomous provinces to designate areas for renewables — and expressly prohibits blanket, abstract bans. A near-total ban like South Tyrol's therefore stands, in my view, on shaky legs. The question isn't only what Bolzano wants — but what Bolzano can actually get away with.

The elephant stays the same

I've written it before: we have the cheapest clean energy in human history practically within reach — and we say "too ugly." The court has now thrown a first bolt across that.

The priority for renewables doesn't rule out protecting the landscape. But it demands that every limit be justified: specific, documented, proportionate. Not pulled from thin air.

75 metres, 10 percent. To this day nobody has explained why. Now a court no longer accepts it either.

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