Landowners’ attitudes toward agrivoltaic adoption: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment in Southern Italy

In Italy, the recent regulation supports the adoption of agrivoltaic systems. However, the propensity to invest by landowners requires an analysis of their preferences, expectations and perceived barriers. This study, conducted in Southern Italy, explores the attitude of landowners to install agrivoltaic systems on their properties, assessing the coherence between their preferences and the national regulation. The survey is based on discrete choice experiments administered to 1486 landowners through face-to-face interviews. The propensity to invest was analysed through hypothetical scenarios based on technical, organizational, economic and governance characteristics of agrivoltaic systems. The results highlight five distinct classes of landowners with the preferred incentive tariff ranging from 85 € MWh−1 to 157 € MWh−1. Only 17.4% accept the incentive tariff set by the National Energy Services Manager (93 € MWh−1), while the others require higher incentives depending on territory, employment, produce, previous experience with energy infrastructure, information on the impact of agrivoltaics systems on crops and human health, and recognition of community benefits. Policies should adopt differentiated incentive schemes, promote agricultural energy communities, simplify access to funds and integrate information and contractual strategies to ensure equity, efficiency and social acceptability of agrivoltaics in rural areas.