Assessment of the impact of utility-scale photovoltaics on the surrounding environment in the Iberian Peninsula. Alternatives for the coexistence with agriculture

•Satellite images are a valuable tool for analyzing the impact of photovoltaic plants.•Photovoltaic plants have a moderate impact on humidity (5%) and vegetation (3%).•The elimination of the contour of the solar panels and the comparison with external areas allows obtaining interesting analyzes.•The inclusion of vegetation cover and cultivation within the solar plant area would be beneficial for humidity.•Solar plants on areas of greater inclination of the terrain have a greater impact. The rapid growth of photovoltaic solar energy, to achieve decarbonization, has been accompanied by increasing land occupation and the subsequent concern in the agroforestry sector. The increase in land area occupied has been of 20% in recent years, boosting solar electricity production to 5.9% of the total in Europe. This fact raises the question of the impact on vegetation greenness and moisture in the rural environment, something that has not always been considered. Image analysis is presented as one of the most effective tools to estimate the variation of vegetation greenness and moisture. For this, terrestrial images, like those from unmanned aerial vehicles, can be used; however, this limits the amount of information available and/or increases the cost. The use of satellite images in different bands is a relatively new tool that can be exploited for the analysis of solar plants impact. This work presents a new way to use Sentinel imagery to analyse the impact of utility-scale solar plants on vegetation and moisture of the surrounding areas. According to our results, a moderate decrease in weighted index for both moisture (5%) and vegetation (3%) occurred after solar plant installation. It is expected that these results can be of help for the design of new PV and agrivoltaic plants, originating the Ground-Integrated Photovoltaics (GIPV).