Development of renewable energy sources is among the most important mitigating actions to climate change, and solar and wind power and hydropower is developed with larger volumes than ever before. At the same time, new energy projects cause new environmental impacts and the concerns over habitat degradation is now equally high on the international agenda. This has led to a situation that developers of renewable energy sources must look for new site for their projects already utilized used for human purposes. Using existing reservoirs for hydropower production is one possible alternative to install new solar power panels, i.e. at sites that are already used for hydropower production. One example of this is Statkraft’s developments in Albania that is expected to start electricity production (from 2020) from solar panels floating in a reservoir already established for hydropower production.
It is, however, limited research on how floating solar panels might affect the environmental conditions in the lakes. This study aims at investigating the effects on the water balance, water temperatures and other physical/chemical characteristics of the lake with use of a hydrodynamic lake model.
The study can be divided into the following activities:
- Literature review on environmental studies from floating solar panels
- Selection of case study (reservoir) for setting up a hydro-dynamic (lake) model
- Calibrating the model and perform a set of scenarios with various configurations of floating solar panels
- Assess the impacts
Figure 1: Floating solar panels installed at a reservoir in Albania (statkraft).
Supervisor: Tor Haakon Bakken
Industry contact: Multiconsult
Initiated by extensive plans to develop on-shore wind power in Norway it has been an intense debate in media about the environmental impacts related to the development of different renewable electricity technologies. In particular, development of wind power in Trøndelag and Norway has experienced intense local and regional resistance.
It is, however, difficult to find scientific evidence supporting that some technologies have a smaller environmental footprint than another, by systematically comparing the environmental performance of off-shore wind power, on-shore wind power, small and large hydropower as well as refurbishment and extension of existing hydropower plants. This study aims at selecting a number of possible or planned renewable electricity project and systematically compare their environmental footprint, i.e. with respect to greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint), impacts on wilderness areas, habitat degradation, water footprint and other relevant environmental indicators.
The study can be divided into the following activities:
- Literature review on studies comparing environmental performance between electricity technologies
- Selection of case studies for a comparing environmental performance (in Norway or abroad)
- Carry out a GIS-based analysis on environmental impacts/develop new analytical method
- Do a ranking of the different technological alternatives
Figure 1: Which technology gives the best environmental performance; large hydropower, small hydropower or wind power, with the same electricity output?
Supervisor: Tor Haakon Bakken & Mahmoud Saber Kenawi (PhD-student)