Sardinia, photovoltaic besieges the countryside

Where there was grass – and trees, in some cases – there are now expanses of photovoltaic panels. Entire swathes of Sardinia, from the coastal areas to the inland countryside, have already changed face.

Satellite photos are a slap in the face to all landscape lovers: thousands of hectares of silicon slabs, almost always installed by companies based outside Sardinia, are rapidly suffocating agricultural land. And it hurts even more when compared with images from the historical archive of Google Earth: ten years ago, in some cases even less, all this did not exist.

The most striking case is between Capoterra and Uta, where the cultivable areas have given way to the industrial zone. At the foot of Monte Arcosu there are about five square kilometers of panels. To be clear: the surface dedicated to the production of photovoltaic energy is greater than the extension of the two closest inhabited centers. And to think that right here the lords of renewables would like to uproot an olive grove planted thirty years ago, capable of producing - says the report of an agronomist, appointed by the committee for the defense of the territory - olives for over two hundred thousand euros a year.

Dozens of cases across the island, but we may be just at the beginning: Terna data says that new projects for almost 24 thousand megawatts have been presented.

Michael Ruffi