Integrating Renewable Energy and Smallholder Livelihoods: A Fuzzy-AHP Approach to Agrivoltaic Site Selection in Semi-Arid Indonesia
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Abstract
The expansion of utility-scale solar energy in the Global South increasingly competes with agricultural land, threatening rural livelihoods dependent on livestock grazing. Existing spatial planning methodologies often neglect this tension, prioritizing technical efficiency over social equity. This study addresses this gap by developing a novel socio-ecological suitability framework that explicitly integrates livestock household density as a primary site-selection criterion. We operationalize this framework using a Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) within a GIS environment, validated through a case study in Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, a prototypical semi-arid archipelagic region. The weighting strategy prioritizes the "Energy-Livelihood Nexus," identifying areas where solar deployment supports rather than displaces pastoralists. Results delineate 301,000 hectares of highly suitable land for solar-livestock integration. Comparative analysis reveals that while centralized utility-scale models (Strategy B) maximize generation efficiency, the distributed community-scale model (Strategy A) aligns significantly better with rural settlement patterns and equity goals. We conclude that integrating social capacity indicators transforms agrivoltaics into a mechanism for just energy transition, simultaneously advancing SDG 7 (Clean Energy) and SDG 2 (Food Security) in data-scarce tropical drylands.
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