Paul Brown
Climate News Network
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/12-05-08_AS1.JPG
Research in England shows that solar farms reduce local temperature and
provide shade, enabling crops in hot and desert climates to flourish.
B
y soaking up the sun to
make electricity, solar
farms also alter the local
environment − changing
the temperature and the diversity of
plant species.
How this affects soil productivity
and the food supply is becoming
increasingly important as thousands
of solar farms are being built across
the planet, and even more are
planned.
Research carried out in the temperate conditions of England shows
that the temperature under solar
panels is reduced by 5°C. While this
may not be good for growing
plants in a cool climate, it could be
a major boon in hot and desert climates, where too much sunshine
and heat kills plants.
The research, reported in Environment Research Letters, was carried
out in a large solar park in Swindon, southern England, by scientists
from Lancaster University and
the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
Using microclimates
The scientists believe that the lessons learned could help countries
gain benefits by using the microclimates created by solar farms to
grow crops in cooler, shadier conditions.
Dr Alona Armstrong, a terrestrial
carbon cycling scientist at Lancaster
University, says that understanding
the climate effects of solar parks
will give farmers and land managers the knowledge they need to
choose which crops to grow and
how best to manage the land.
“There is potential to maximise biodiversity and improve yields,” she
says.
This is particularly important as solar parks take up more space per
unit of power generated compared
with traditional sources.
“Water losses may also be reduced, and water could be collected from the large surfaces of
the solar panels and used for
crop irrigation”
Dr Armstrong says: “Until this
study, we didn’t understand how
solar parks impacted on climate