An Australian non-profit consultancy has released a set of strategies to achieving net gain in biodiversity within new solar farms, as its country plans to enhance efforts to prevent renewable plants from harming ecosystems.
The Community Power Agency developed the guide in collaboration with ecologists, wildlife experts, researchers, farmers, landscape groups, and renewable energy developers, with the aim of addressing land-use conflicts and enhancing biodiversity.
While the guide is tailored to the ecosystem of the New England Tableland bioregion in northern New South Wales, its principles are relevant across the Australian landscape, the organisation said.
“We know from projects being developed in Asia, Europe, the US, and now emerging in Australia, that conservation and agriculture don’t need to come off second best to renewable energy,” said co-author Heidi McElnea, regional coordinator at Community Power Agency.
“It’s also a chance to engage and employ local First Nations ranger groups, and tap into a long history of holistic land management while supporting that important re-connection to country.”
“CONSERVOLTAIC” STRATEGY
Large-scale solar projects can require extensive land use, which potentially leads to disruption, fragmentation, and biodiversity loss.
To address these risks, the Community Power Agency calls for developers and land owners to adopt regenerative farming techniques, including the so-called ‘conservoltaic’ method.
The group defined the conservoltaic techniques as a series of strategies to combine nature conservation and solar systems in a bid to leave the natural environment at solar project sites in a measurably better state.
Moreover, according to the organisations, operators of solar farms can benefit from ecosystem services through adopting such an approach.
This includes dust and heat control by vegetation planting, as well as establishing solar farms along creeks and gullies that can slow down water flows, reduce erosion, and prevent damage to infrastructure.
“[Solar farms can] create structural complexity in the environment, offering shelter and habitat for wildlife,” the organisation said.
“Solar panels provide patches of sun and shade, which are beneficial to frogs, lizards, and snakes, and likely provide nesting and perch sites for birds.”
However, while solar farms have the potential to benefit wildlife and contribute to environmental restoration, the long-term outcomes for biodiversity on operating solar farms remain largely unknown, especially in Australia, the organisation said.
MAJOR CONCERN
The Community Power Agency advised operators of solar farms to engage local communities and First Nation in the development stage of the project, in a bid to avoid land use conflict.
“This guide will assist in future-proofing solar farms to meet emerging obligations for projects to be nature positive, as well as climate positive,” it said.
As the transition to low-emissions energy speeds up, the impacts of renewable energy projects on the natural environment have become a major concern.
In April, the state of Victoria in Australia announced a commitment of A$3.8 million ($2.5 mln) to create tools and guidelines for developers of renewable energy projects, aimed at preventing harm to local biodiversity.
The state government said that it would release new state-wide maps by July, identifying key habitat areas for native wildlife to assist renewable energy developers in building projects in areas that will have the least impact on wildlife, as Carbon Pulse reported.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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