Energy-environment-society interactions

Ecological consequences of wind energy are complex, and increasingly appear to extend far beyond the displacement of volant animals. In the biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats of India, reduction in raptor activity in areas with wind turbines result in wide ranging changes to ground-dwelling lizards. Not only were densities of lizards considerably higher in the presence of wind turbines, but lizards showed changes to a suite of phenotypic traits, from morphology and behaviour to physiology. These cascading consumptive and non-consumptive effects of wind turbines on lizards seem to be driven by a combination of predator release and density-dependent competition. In a functional sense, wind-farms effectively add a functional trophic level to the top of food webs, and their emerging impacts across the community call into question whether green energy goals (Paris agreement) and ecosystem protection (Aichi targets) can be simultaneously satisfied in critical ecosystems.

Globally, the deployment of offshore wind is expanding rapidly. An improved understanding of the economic, social and environmental impacts of this sector, and how they compare with those of other energy systems, is therefore necessary to support energy policy and planning decisions. This talk will outline the ongoing work of the UKERC energy, environment & landscapes project which will apply ecosystem service and natural capital approaches to understand the environmental implications of changes in the UK offshore wind energy system. The impacts of offshore wind development on ecosystem services will be assessed through a qualitative process of mapping ecological and cultural parameters informed and tested using existing case study data from UK offshore wind farms, particularly those collected as part of statutory monitoring. By reporting outcomes in societal terms, the approach will help facilitate communication with decision makers and will aid in the evaluation of trade-offs such as environmental net gain and the potential for co-location with other economic activities.

Decarbonising energy systems is as much a social and spatial challenge as a technical or economic one. Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy resources are geographically dispersed. This means that evolving sustainable energy systems are far less ‘out of sight, out of mind’ than the centralised, distant energy system that is a historical legacy of the 20th century. As technologies for generating power and heat are sited closer to homes and communities, social conflicts have increased over where they should go, who decides and how costs and benefits are distributed. Such conflicts, often wrongly attributed to ‘NIMBYism’, have led to calls for just transitions involving greater public participation in policy-making, as well as earlier engagement and substantial benefit provision to ‘host communities’ directly impacted by infrastructure projects. In this presentation, I will share three examples of how inter-related social and spatial dimensions of energy transitions play out in diverse technology sectors. Each case reveals ways that social and spatial dimensions are crucial to the understanding of energy transitions, and have significant implications for the decarbonisation of energy systems in ways that are extensive, rapid, legitimate and fair.

What new knowledge is required?
What barriers exist to development of the required knowledge?
What can be done to more rapidly accelerate the development of knowledge?

Looking ahead at the transition from fossil fuels at some of the technologies and solutions that already exist nationally and locally and the role they will play.

The Committee on Climate Change has highlighted the important role Local Government must play in responding to the climate emergency. The majority of English Councils have responded to public demand and declared climate emergencies in 2019. The scope of council's to act can be constrained by statutory responsibilities and available budgets. Nevertheless, many are pushing for their regions to be net zero well in advance of the national timetable. This session will give a perspective of the challenges faced by decision makers in reconciling responsibilities such as planning, housing, environmental management and economic growth with the ambition for transformational action. Can the sometimes-challenging economic case for investment be overcome by considering the wider social and environmental benefits?

Multifunctional land use refers to the delivery of multiple benefits (food and non-food agricultural production activities, ecosystem services) from land over a variety of temporal and spatial scales. Reform of UK agricultural policy, together with the urgent need for climate action towards net zero emissions, requires farmers, land managers and policy decision makers to move away from regarding land as having a single purpose.

Examples of multifunctional landscapes include solar farms with sheep grazing and agri-environmental features around margins (eg enhanced hedgerows with occasional hedgerow trees); wind farms with arable crops and/or grazing (subject to some machinery limitations, as for power lines); and perennial energy crops harbouring wildlife due to limited disturbance, providing flood-tolerant/flood mitigation land cover on a floodplain – as well as (in the case of willow) a source of early-season pollen an interesting new public amenity (where footpaths cross or border such land).  

However, concerns have been raised about the scale of recent ground-mounted solar installations, now being proposed without government incentives as the cost of the technology has fallen. These are typically 5-10 times larger than the government-supported solar farms being constructed some 5-7 years ago. In collaboration with others such as Solar Energy UK, the NFU hopes that good practice guidance for these much larger projects will also enable multi-purpose land use for biodiversity and small grazing livestock alongside energy production, as a source of diversification income at a time of significant uncertainty for our industry.

Solar parks present a unique opportunity to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. Research has shown that targeted interventions and sustainable land management practices can increase natural capital and deliver environmental net gain within solar parks, while simultaneously providing clean zero carbon electricity. This talk will address the natural capital value solar can deliver, and what the UK solar industry is doing to embed best practice in the design from the early planning stages through to implementation.

Where is policy and practice failing and where is it succeeding?
How could policy and practice be changed to integrate environment?
What approaches can be used to better integrate across sectors (eg developers, policy-makers, researchers) and disciplines (eg social scientists, ecologists)?