Strategically integrated renewable energy and environment systems (SIRE)

For most societies, energy underpins all aspects of life and many people consider access to abundant and uninterrupted energy a basic need and right. Energy is currently responsible for ~75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and thus contributes significantly to climate change. Therefore, in order to avoid dangerous climate change it is critical that we change our energy supplies to those that release substantially less greenhouse gas.

Land-based wind and solar energy offers great potential for the UK, given their maturity compared with wave and tidal; increasing cost competitiveness evidenced by continued deployment despite subsidy cuts; rapidity of deployment compared with nuclear (e.g. 2008-25 Hinkley-C implementation) and shale gas; considerable potential across the UK compared to limited remaining hydro energy resources; established UK-based industrial and financial expertise; and game-changing developments in the battery market. However, wind and solar takes up a greater land area than traditional power stations with both beneficial and detrimental effects on the hosting landscape. Therefore, deciding the design, management and location of wind and solar across the UK is pivotal; poor decisions could swap the global-scale climate change impacts of energy for localised environmental damage.

Environmental science has a critical role to play in determining the design, management and location of land-based wind and solar energy. Environmental processes directly control energy generation through resource potential (e.g. solar radiation and wind), and influencing factors (e.g. dust deposition on solar panels and turbulence caused by forestry). Conversely, renewables also affect the functioning of the environment, for example by changing local climates and ecology and altering the provision of space for nature and the delivery of ecosystem services.

Consequently, environmental science is well placed to deliver a means of informing astute decisions. For example, is land take of pasture land in Yorkshire preferable to land take of low grade agricultural land in Wiltshire? In areas where both are viable, is solar or wind preferable? Moreover, at the site scale, can management actions and energy infrastructure be designed to deliver co-benefits (e.g. habitats) and reduce detrimental impacts (e.g. unnecessary disturbance)? Further, given the economic basis of energy decision-making, it is not only necessary to provide evidenced-based guidance, but also to provide a means of quantifying the effect of different decisions. Moreover, this will also support future business cases for wind and solar energy developments.

Consequently, the aim of this project is to provide a robust evidence base to inform the strategic deployment of wind and solar energy across the UK, delivering energy, environment and socio-economic benefits. This will be achieved through three objectives:
1. Development of a multifactorial framework to assess the energy, environment and socio-economic effects of land-based wind and solar energy;
2. Simulated assessment and quantification of the energy, environment and socio-economic effects of wind and solar energy across the UK;
3. Engaging with stakeholders to enable embedding of innovative tools into UK energy decision-making from local to national scales.

The research and innovation will be co-developed with stakeholders and the outcomes will bring an innovative and novel means of evidence-based decision for land use change for renewable energy that delivers and quantifies energy, environment and socio-economic benefits.