A negotiation game about solar panels, farmland, and the future of energy
Kandel is a small town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany — at the heart of one of Europe's largest solar energy debates. In 2022, a proposed freiflächenphotovoltaik (open-space PV) installation sparked a regional controversy: hundreds of hectares of agricultural land potentially converted to solar.
This game uses a fictional 50-hex map of Kandel to simulate the trade-offs four stakeholder groups face when deciding where solar panels should — or should not — go.
Each group votes to restrict (protect) or prefer (develop) hexes across three rounds: Restrictions → Preferences → Conflict Resolution.
Mature woodland with high biodiversity, carbon storage, and visual amenity. Citizens value the view; ecologists value the ecosystem.
Cultivated cropland. Produces grain and vegetables with moderate soil quality. Loss of food production is the main concern.
High-yield farmland with premium soil. Often vineyard or orchard. The most economically valuable agricultural land — and the most contested.
Residential areas. Citizens worry about visual impact, glare, and the loss of community character — not food or ecology.
Meadows and pasture. Moderate ecological value as habitat and carbon sink. Often grazed by livestock.
Already paved or built. No agricultural or ecological value — but restricting it means lost opportunity for urban solar development.
All groups vote on all 50 hexes. Restrict a hex to protect it from PV. If no one prefers it, all groups that care about that land earn protection points.
Vote again. Prefer a hex to build PV there. If built, all groups that care about that land lose impact points.
Hexes with both restrict and prefer votes go to negotiation. No automatic scoring — discuss, trade, and decide.
Configure scoring values for each group. Restriction = protection value (PLUS). Preference = impact value (MINUS).
| Land Type | 🌾 Farmer | 🏠 Citizen | 🌳 Environment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Productive Agriculture | |||
| Arable Land | |||
| Forest | |||
| Grassland | |||
| Settlement | |||
| Sealed |
| Scenario | 🏭 Industry |
|---|---|
| Preferred + has road | |
| Preferred + no road | |
| Road restricted | |
| Others preferred (road hex) |
| Hex ↕ | Land Type ↕ | Road ↕ | 🌾 Farmer ↕ | 🏠 Citizen ↕ | 🏭 Industry ↕ | 🌳 Env ↕ |
|---|
Consensus and conflict analysis for Round 3 negotiation.