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The spread of solar panels in rural areas has become a divisive issue among Danish voters
Link information
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- Title
- 'Yes to fields of wheat, no to fields of iron': how the world's greenest country soured on solar
- Authors
- Ajit Niranjan
- Published
- Mar 20 2026
- Word count
- 1025 words
Aah, another lovely example of The Guardian's thorough reporting style.
(edit) Every day, my tag block for The Guardian pays dividends XD if only I were signed in on mobile, I wouldn't have seen this article ...
Genuinely curious, what would you recommend as an alternative to the guardian
Ah -- I'm not sure if I can help, depending on what you're looking for. I mostly keep to Canadian content, with a spattering of whatever a couple youtubers post on environmental issues.
But beyond that, I don't really keep track of any papers in particular. Mostly, I keep track of the inverse -- those which drop the ball so frequently I question whether they think they're playing soccer.
My local municipality just voted in a party that is opposed to placing solar panels on unused farm land because we need to "preserve the character of our living space".
I'm so annoyed with NIMBY's.. they can't even see that unused farm land from their own homes!
But the sound of construction! Or something.
I haven't been able to figure out what the actual opposition is, because there always is something but it's so vague our county/cities don't respond to it
The photos in the article help a lot. I was expecting a lot of NIMBY hand-wringing because I was unfamiliar with the scale and density of the solar panels, but I can totally see their point now. I still think the "eyesore" argument is weaksauce when it comes to land one doesn't own, especially when the thing one is complaining about is renewable energy tech. But I absolutely wouldn't want to be the family in that house that's boxed in by panels on every side, either. Not that they have the right to demand clear vistas as far as the eye can see, but a reasonable affordance of breathing room shouldn't be too much to ask.
They don't own the adjoining land, why should they get veto on renewable energy development?
I recommend not moving to a rural area in that case. Part of rural living includes being around rural industry. There will be pylons, phone towers, wind turbines, center-pivot sprinklers, junkyards, tree farm clearcutting, ugly fences, ugly sheds, ugly monoculture fields, farm animal noises, farm animal smells, tractors shining extremely bright lights at night, tractors in the road slowing down traffic, etc. Solar panels are pretty benign in the scheme of things. If this household managed to get the solar farm closed, it would likely be replaced by something much more unpleasant; the landowner needs to make a living doing something, and most of the other options are noisy, smelly, and/or much harder to hide than solar panels.
To me, it comes across like someone moving into an urban environment and complaining when a bar opens nearby. If you don't like seeing commercial or industrial activity, stick to dedicated residential areas.
From the article:
I agree that it's possible that the farmhouse entirely surrounded by solar panels is inhabited by someone who dislikes them, but broadly, it's simple enough to have trees or hedges that obscure the solar fields if people feel they're an eyesore. This isn't something that truly needs to block developments. More likely the cancellation of additional projects is about enough solar being online that they're already seeing negative energy prices during sunny days. Further energy investment will need to be in storage or alternate energy generation.