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Project Title: Determining the potential for co-benefits for biodiversity conservation and renewable energy generation in solar farms in Ireland.
Keywords: Photovoltaics, Biodiversity, sustainable energy, microclimate, nature-based solutions.
Supervisors: Professor Sarah Mc Cormack and Professor Jane Stout
Energy demands are ever increasing while governments around the world place their faith in renewable energy sources to limit the environmental problems that arise from fossil fuels. Ireland is no different and has set targets to increase uptake in renewable sources, one such target is the Climate action plan 2023, as part of this plan a target of 8 GWs of solar PV is to be connected to the grid by 2030. As of June 2023, the ISEA reports that Irelands current installed PV capacity stands at 680MW. During the years 2018-2020 the average size of solar farms in Ireland was between 20-40 hectares, during the years 2021-2023 projects of over 100 hectares have entered the planning stages. It is safe to assume that the target of 8 GW will require extensive land use all around Ireland, with this land use, it is important for us not to trade any benefits we might gain in renewable energy generation at the cost of destroying or disrupting local biodiversity, guidelines will need to be introduced in order to protect the landscapes and biodiversity we aim to change.
The research I plan to do over the next years, will be focused on finding co-benefits for both solar farms and local biodiversity, to do this many aspects of solar farm implementation will be examined in order to find out what potential impacts there are on biodiversity in the region implemented. There are many changes that will occur in a region once a solar farm has been placed there, for example, new field management regimes that can have effects on local flora and fauna, to changes in local microclimate and changes to wildlife corridors.
The first step in this research is to discern the impact a solar farm has on local microclimates, this will be done by measuring key microclimate indicators such as Air Temperature (Ta), Wind speed (Ws), Humidity (RH), Soil moisture and Soil Temperature. The result of these measurements will be compared to a control (An adjacent field under the same management regime as the solar farm prior to its installation).
This research is part of the Kinsella Challenge-based E3 Multi-disciplinary Project Awards.