The trade-off between socio-environmental awareness and renewable penetration targets in energy transition roadmaps

Recent years have seen Sustainable Development Goals mark the way towards a sustainable future and put the growth of renewable energy sources in the spotlight. This increase, led by PV and wind technologies, will be necessary to meet renewable penetration targets in upcoming decades. However, these sources require vast amounts of land, a limited resource affecting other Sustainable Development Goals such as ecosystem protection or food production. This article explores the land–energy nexus through the minimization of the system total cost that incorporates a form of suitability for land occupation. Three differentiated regimes appear under a changing suitability cost, with a gap of 70% penetration between the two extremes, and with very high suitability costs unable to meet future objectives given their cap at around the 35% penetration mark. The intermediate approach presents the best fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goals overall, with an increase between 15 and 30% with respect to the other regimes. Existing development plans for the Spanish system point towards this midway approach, a sign of their commitment to sustainability. This study shows that a balanced consideration of land and energy should be prioritized, as the negative effects that arise in a biased approach outweigh the benefits.