A Smarter Way to shift to renewables-based economies
A quiet revolution is underway in renewable energy planning. As the global push for a green transition accelerates, a new challenge has emerged: how to rapidly deploy solar and wind projects without harming nature and communities. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) believes it has found a solution: Smart Siting.
A significant obstacle to a swift renewable energy transition is locating land that doesn’t damage ecosystems or disrupt communities. TNC’s preliminary findings show there’s more than enough land to meet the European Union’s goal of at least 42.5% renewable energy by 2030, proving that careful planning can benefit both people and the planet in the process.
The approach to placing renewable energy projects in locations that maximize their climate and energy benefits while minimizing their impact on sensitive ecosystems and local populations. By using sophisticated data analysis and early stakeholder engagement, Smart Siting helps clear a path for a faster, more sustainable energy transition.
Meticulous Mapping
The core of Smart Siting is a meticulous, data-driven process. TNC overlays maps of renewable energy potential with a variety of environmental and social data, including:
- Wildlife habitats and protected lands
- Valuable agricultural land
- Proximity to the existing electrical grid
- Community values and cultural sites
This process pinpoints “low-conflict zones”—areas where renewable development can occur with the least impact on biodiversity and local communities. The approach also incorporates future climate change considerations, ensuring projects are sustainable for the long term.
Proactive engagement with communities is a critical step, ensuring that local values and concerns are incorporated from the very beginning. This helps to avoid the social opposition and costly delays that often plague large-scale energy projects. The result is a transparent and scientific framework for designating high-potential, low-impact sites for renewables, known in Europe as Renewables Acceleration Areas (RAAs).
Success at scale in the Balkans
The Smart Siting model is already demonstrating its effectiveness in Southeast Europe. Regions like the Balkans are global hotspots for biodiversity with significant renewable energy potential. To strike a balance, this approach considers not just energy potential but also social interests like agriculture and tourism, ensuring projects are sited in a way that preserves and values biodiversity.
With local partner, the Hrvoje Pozar Energy Institute, TNC embarked on a two-year pilot project in Croatia. The project identified areas of low natural and social sensitivity where wind and solar could be developed as a priority as Mate Zec, Renewable Energy Siting Specialist, The Nature Conservancy explains;
“When it comes to building renewable energy sources, especially windfarms Croatia is a regional leader. However, we’re not yet where we should be. The challenge we now face is how to do this in a way that preserves the natural values we have.”
And the results from the pilot were striking; “The pilot project identified 1.1 gigawatts of capacity for wind and solar power development in Zadar county. That’s half of the renewable energy Croatia needs to meet its targets from this one country alone.”
But achieving genuine systems change requires more than simply increasing renewable capacity. Many utility-scale renewable projects are located in rural and underdeveloped areas, which can benefit from the economic boost these investments bring. To fully realise this potential, societies across the region need better mechanisms to ensure that local communities share directly in the economic and social benefits of the energy transition. These systems are still emerging, and strengthening them will be essential for long-term, community-centered development.
For Croatia and other Western Balkan countries that are net importers of electricity, expanding domestic renewable generation is also a pathway to improved energy security. By reducing dependence on external markets, countries can achieve a more predictable and stable energy supply, something that underpins a healthy and resilient economy. At the same time, the shift to renewables supports the region’s goal of phasing out coal, delivering climate benefits while improving public health.
However, scaling this transformation requires significant upgrades to the region’s aging energy systems. Much of the Western Balkans’ electrical grid was never designed to be self-sufficient, and large parts of the infrastructure date back decades. Like elsewhere in Europe, grids were also not built for the distributed and variable nature of modern renewable energy. To keep pace with the transition, countries will need major investments in transmission capacity, stronger cross-border integration, storage solutions, and smart demand-side measures. These are complex technical, political, and social challenges—but meeting them is key to enabling a resilient, modern energy economy.
This research, along with projects mapping the potential of rooftop solar on existing structures, proves that careful planning can simultaneously achieve climate, biodiversity, and community goals.
North Macedonia is also a prime example of smart renewable energy planning. According to Viktor Andonov, Energy Advisor to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia; North Macedonia was the first to introduce a long-term energy development strategy for the country, based on the European Green Deal.
The Nature Conservancy with local partners, the Macedonian Academy for Science and Arts and Eko-svest have mapped land favourable for renewable plants, focusing on degraded lands and brownfield sites. The project identified twice the land needed to meet the country’s electricity demand on former mines.
Aleksandar Dedinec from Macedonian Academy of Science and Art works with the Smart siting initiative; “The project for energy transition i.e. for smart planning is of great importance for North Macedonia, because the energy strategy envisions many investments in renewable resources, about 1400 megawatt solar power plants and 720 MW wind power plants. On the other side, the energy crisis showed that these investments are exactly those that are lacking in the sector.”
This approach ensures that clean energy is built on land that is no longer in use, protecting natural and cultural areas. The transformation of the Oslomej thermal power plant in the Kichevo region into a photovoltaic site is a clear success story, showing that a just energy transition is possible and can create new jobs. .
Delicately balancing progress and preservation
By identifying suitable locations early, Smart Siting accelerates the permitting process, protects critical habitats, and minimizes social conflicts. TNC’s experience in the U.S. and India has shown that this approach reduces costs, shortens timelines, and supports equity.
The world needs to triple its renewable energy capacity by 2030 while also protecting 30% of the Earth’s land and sea. Smart Siting is a clear example of how data can be used to ensure renewable energy sources are installed without harming nature and communities.
