Land Based Renewables

What is the Land Based Renewables programme?

This is a research programme to help the UK meet its renewable energy targets.

Background

The UK has the target of producing 40% of its electricty from renewable energy sources, such as wind farms, solar power and biofuels, by 2020. The programme considers all mechanisms that produce energy on the land surface, at a range of scales from big wind farms to micro-generation.

The aim is to find out the consequences of using land for renewable energy production on the resilience of land and freshwater ecosystems.

Research topics:

There are three projects running:

1. Stephen Mobbs, University of Leeds

This project will use newly emerging techniques of very high resolution nested numerical modelling to develop a micro-climate model, to make climate predictions down to scales of less than 1km.

http://ncasweb.leeds.ac.uk/microclimates

2. Gail Taylor, University of Southampton

This project will improve understanding of soil processes which change the amount of soil carbon as land is converted from arable/grassland to land based renewables.

http://www.carbo-biocrop.ac.uk

3. David Howard, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster

This project will find out how understanding ecosystem services and the energyscape can be used to help guide the deployment of land based renewables.

Dr David Howard says 'We have developed a tool for evaluating different stakeholders perspectives of ecosystem services and the potential impact of different changes to the energy system in their location. We are currently testing it out with people in Marston Vale area of Bedfordshire and we have had good reviews from planners and developers.'

Who will benefit?

The outputs of the programme will be used by:

• UK government to inform their strategic goals on land based renewable energy
• the Environment Agency and Natural England to inform policy and decision making on future use of energy systems
• land users and planners such as the Forestry Commission, utility companies and landowners to make informed decisions on renewable energy

Society

Society and the economy will benefit from any future deployment of land based renewables; there will be improved energy security and reduced impacts of climate change.

PROGRAMME FACTS AND FIGURES

Start and end dates: 01/09/2009 to 01/10/2013

Other organisations involved:

Shell UK

Website: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/landbased