The ongoing climate crisis is making us all alive to the need to reduce carbon emissions. There are many exciting emerging technologies: some are rather technical, and others a bit more well established and widely used. Solar energy is one of these, after all, what could be more delightful than sunshine?
We are doing a review of an emerging integration of green roofs – solar panels (click here). This will no doubt be challenging beyond the design stage, as green roofs can have maintenance issues. However, digging deeper into green technologies can find troubling trends. Our work in assisting on the land use planning side of solar energy has uncovered some such trends. Renewable energy is attracting a lo t of investment. It is also encouraged by government grants and tax credits – the last always attractive to investors and operators. Emerging and established EU regulations and corporate policies now mandate carbon off-sets. This is good in principle but can create unintended consequences. Another factor is economies of scale. Any energy company or investor is going to look for the best return on investment. A large single development is more profitable than a small one. This applies to renewables as much as to any other kind of energy source or investment in general. Micro-generation needs to be maximised but is running into trouble at the moment (see the government’s current green scheme); at the individual or household level, it is much more difficult to justify the investment, which can be substantial, if the benefit is not forthcoming. For the operator/investor, the decision is different: they expect to invest up front, and as long as the costs are off-set, and the returns clear, they will do so. So how does this effect land use planning? We have worked on a number of solar schemes now and have found that environmental capacity is essential if schemes are not to cause harm. The medium- sized schemes can be designed and sited in such a way as to avoid environmental harm. The typical issues are: effects on intrinsic landscape quality, effects on visual amenity – views – and effects on biodiversity. But the need to define the capacity of the environment to accept change is essential. If this capacity is accurately defined and the scheme does not exceed it, then it should be acceptable. But we have also been asked to comment on larger schemes and here the more troubling aspects of renewable investments come into play. In one case, a big European energy provider is proposing a scheme in the Midlands which clearly exceeds environmental capacity. This provider is looking at: 1) economies of scale 2) tax benefits from both the UK and Europe and 3) the regulatory requirement to offset its other commercial energy sources (in this case, lignite coal). This large scheme would harm the landscape, visual amenity and cause permanent habitat loss. There is a name for this: externalities. This is when capitalism maximises its return on investment by profiting at the expense of the public good – in this case, the environment. The company takes the profits, and society picks up the pieces in terms of environmental harm, either by accepting permanent loss or having to fund compensation outside of the scheme itself. The planning system via EIA and planning gain mechanisms is meant to minimise this, but it is not always effective. This cited scheme has been screened out of EIA. Sunshine is good, as is solar energy. But we need to be aware of coat tailing by energy operators and investors on this feel good factor. All development needs to be appropriate to its setting – no matter what its intention. Let us, instead, aspire to the beautiful as the solar/green roof model demonstrates in our latest Blog article.
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Archit Mehta
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