In the Shadow of the Panels : The Lived Experience of an Alpine Energy Landscape

Sammanfattning

As renewable energy infrastructures expand into rural and alpine regions, landscapes are increasingly transformed in the name of sustainability. While such developments are often discussed through planning, policy, and visual impact, their everyday affective and embodied dimensions remain less explored. This master thesis investigates the transformation of Scharinas, a high-alpine pasture in Tujetsch, Switzerland, into the large-scale photovoltaic project Sedrun Solar. Using autoethnography, the thesis examines how the solar park is encountered through movement, memory, materiality, and emotion by a researcher returning to a familiar childhood landscape. The analysis shows how the infrastructure reorganises spatial perception, reshapes relations with the more-than-human landscape, and unsettles feelings of continuity, agency, and belonging. Engaging with more-than-representational landscape theory and solastalgia, the thesis argues that energy landscapes are not merely built into place but come to matter through the ways they are lived, felt, and remembered.