Overview

This is our last lesson of three that are tied to the broader impacts of solar design. In Lessons 8, 9, and 10 we have been addressing the Goal of Solar Design by helping the client to manage risk in the given locale. This lesson deals with risk in terms of uncertainties that are encompassed in the long-term time horizon of projects as they have societal and environmental impacts.

Sustainability plays a major role in focusing our views of solar energy deployment and managing long-term risks (generational time scales). This lesson tries to encompass those broader impacts of developing a renewable energy project and addresses the motivation for sustainability system thinking in project design. We frame this lesson in terms of sustainability ethics and ecosystems services, and we will develop our activities in this lesson around discussions and essays. You will be using the answers from your Learning Activity to inform the broader impacts section of your final projects.

We are often reminded of how energy technologies, when deployed on a large scale (natural gas, oil production, coal combustion, etc), will have significant environmental impacts that are disruptive to the global, regional, and local ecosystems. I want you each to consider how large-scale solar energy deployment can also induce ecosystem change and reduction in ecosystems services, which must be avoided in future project development. This lesson will build upon the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [1] that was called for in 2000 by the United Nations.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• describe how sustainability ethics can be included into project design as a motivating factor for Solar Project Development;
• apply the four classes of benefits that are supplied by ecosystems: ecosystems services;
• apply the concept of ecosystems services to renewable energy projects in rural and urban scenarios; and
• become familiar with the context of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [1]

What is due for Lesson 10?

This lesson will take us one week to complete. Please refer to the Course Calendar for specific time frames and due dates. Directions for the assignments below can be found within this lesson.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please post them to the Lesson 10 General Questions thread in Yellowdig. I will check the forum regularly to respond. While you are in a discussion, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.

Growth in Solar

From our reading, we have seen the:

• Growth Rate: 32-37% increase in PV installed globally:
  • PV industry as installed capacity (in W_p) doubles about every 2 years (or less in recent years).
  • Compare this to the (still large) rate of growth of wind capacity from 2006-2016: 17-18%.
• Swanson Effect: 17-24% drop in manufacturing costs (called a learning curve or an experience curve) with each doubling of cumulative production (learning curve):
  • Installed capacity is different from the time for cumulative production to double (2-3 years), but it is similar.
  • \$76.67/watt in 1977 to \$0.74/watt for 2013.
• Growth rate combined with the learning curve is a positive feedback loop in systems thinking. Meaning: "more solar" will lead to "a lot more solar!";
• With every doubling, the awareness of other solar technologies increases. e.g.:
  • CSP from Ivanpah Solar Power [9]
  • Solar thermal processing in Austria (brewery) [10]
  • Solar seasonal home heating in Drake's Landing [11], Alberta, Canada; and
• Even the building industry shares a solar history through passive solar architecture [12].

Scale of Solar: Now and in the Future

We keep hearing about exponential growth of the solar industry, and larger and larger SECS projects are being rolled out each year. Solar consumes a lot of land, so here we especially focus on the impacts that come with major land use changes. Consider how the land use of these solar projects is linked to the observed ecological disruptions.

These very large solar projects (4,000-5,000 acre scale), started around 2012, are now considered "medium scale”, given the doubling time of PV capacity. There are now Gigawatt scale solar farms in development, with one near Tibet at Longyangxia Dam Solar Park at 850 MW scale (see satellite images from NASA [18]). So the expected ecological impacts will be even more dramatic and may result in not only local, but regional and global consequences. 

Furthermore, the direct land use impacts (such as clearing or changing the land for solar installation) is only a trigger for a larger scale land impact. The Dust Bowl [19] of the USA in the 1930s was initiated by the land use changes of only about 1000 acres in marginal lands, but eventually affected 100 million acres (400 thousand km²). System causal connection and feedbacks within natural ecosystems propagate the initial disturbance to a greater territory and over a greater period of time. 

Recognizing the challenge of cultivating marginal arid land, the United States government expanded on the 160 acres offered under the Homestead Act—granting 640 acres to homesteaders in western Nebraska under the Kinkaid Act [20] (1904) and 320 elsewhere in the Great Plains under the Enlarged Homestead Act [21] (1909).

-Dust Bowl [19] (Wikipedia entry, accessed Nov. 15, 2013)

Ecosystem Services

Significant land areas are being designated for solar projects, including both natural and partially developed. However, the solar development does not have to be detrimental to the health and values of local environment. As well as providing low carbon energy, solar farms can also provide important benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Furthermore, land use change for solar installation presents an opportunity to address the urgent challenges of mitigating ecosystem degradation. In other words, degrading lands can be brought back to health.

However, given the high rate of solar industry development, it is an important time now when we need to determine the best ways to design and manage utility scale solar plants. In fact, many solar projects are built on low-grade or otherwise intensively managed agricultural land and may create an opportunity to enhance biodiversity and return the fields to a natural state.

Let us then review the main types of ecosystem services we are talking about here.

• Provisioning: Things that we get from the ecosystem: food, water, fresh air, wood, medicines, and other natural resources that fulfill our primary needs.
• Regulating: Processes in the environment that regulate climate, water cycling, and purification, waste degradation, pollination for crops, soil erosion control, pest control, etc.
• Cultural: Non-material aesthetic and recreational values we get from being in nature: e.g. views, hiking trails, fishing lakes, national parks, etc. These will support our emotional well-being and mental health.
• Supporting: Resources that support all the above services: habitat, flora and fauna, biodiversity, and soil.

There are sometimes no distinct boundaries between these types, as the same resource may be considered within several categories. For example, trees or soil can be both part of supporting system and provisioning products. Or another example is storing carbon in biomass can be both regulating (carbon sequestration) and resource generating or provisioning (fossil fuel).

At the stage of solar project design, we may want to take a close look at the ecosystem services existing in the target area and assess their environmental significance for the local community. Next, we may want to plan measures and design features that either have minimal impact on those services, enhance them, and add additional value. At the same time, we may want to avoid the actions or design features that are detrimental.

Sustainability Ethics

The major work of research on ecosystem services came out of the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment [6] from the United Nations. Even the synthesis report is a heavy read, so we have included it as supplemental reading. Here is an excerpt from the report that I considered to be highly appropriate in the context of developing large scale solar technologies globally:

Relationships between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being (p. 49)
"Changes in ecosystem services influence all components of human well-being, including the basic material needs for a good life, health, good social relations, security, and freedom of choice and action (CF3). (See Box 3.1.) Humans are fully dependent on Earth’s ecosystems and the services that they provide, such as food, clean water, disease regulation, climate regulation, spiritual fulfillment, and aesthetic enjoyment. The relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being is mediated by access to manufactured, human, and social capital."

This statement is closely linked to the "sustainability ethic" - the term that has been eloquently summarized by Dr. Christian Becker (former faculty in the PSU Department of Philosophy, and expert on sustainability and ethics) as the following:

"Acknowledge and seek solutions that respect a systemic and simultaneous moral obligation to 1) contemporary global communities, 2) future generations of human society, and 3) the natural community or environment supporting life and biodiversity on Earth."

We can see that this invokes a pretty deep perspective, and there is a lot of value encompassed within such a concise statement. I want you to consider several ways of how we might incorporate the sustainability ethic as a motivator into our working lives as professionals.

• Embody your own conviction that corporate interests can be reconciled with social and environmental interests.
• Advocate public participation in the decisions that affect environmental justice.
• Make a business case for sustainable practices in the context of a particular energy business or utility.

Case Example: Keystone Solar Project

Location: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Developer: Community Energy Owner/operator: EDF Renewables Capacity: 6 MW (5 MW AC) Construction: 2012-2013 PV Panels: ~20,000 (fixed tilt)     (Image Credit: Community Energy [23])

The folks at Community Energy [24] and EDF Renewables [25] in Pennsylvania have developed just such an approach to project development, in their Keystone Solar [26] project. This 6 MW PV project was developed on Amish farmland, with specific research applied to the soil quality before and after the project installation. No concrete was used in the ground mount installation here. The design included vegetative buffering with native grasses, shrubs, and trees, allowing the solar installation to blend into the natural landscape. The project received a Project of Distinction Award at the 2013 PV America East Conference.

Several universities and other organizations signed up for a share of the renewable energy credits, including Drexel University, Franklin & Marshall College, Eastern University, Clean Air Council, the Philadelphia Phillies, Juniata College, Millersville University, and Marywood University.

Video: Keystone Solar Time-Lapse (:54)

Best practices were applied, and at the end of the contract employing the solar farm, the land owner will have the option to remove the entire installation and return the land back to farmland for agricultural crops. This is still not the norm in the industry, it is a best practice by a firm seeking to lead the industry.

Case Example: Penn State - Light Source BP 700 MW Solar Farm

“ UNIVERSITY PARK, PA. — On Feb. 5, 2019, Penn State and Lightsource BP announced the development of a large-scale, ground-mounted solar array of over 150,000 solar panels near Penn State’s Mont Alto Campus. This 70-megawatt, off-site solar energy project will support the University’s Strategic Plan, helping implement the plan’s "Stewarding Our Planet’s Resources" key pillar and supplying up to 25 percent of the University system’s electricity.” (Verdi, 2019 [29])

Credit: Gustavo Fring [30]/Skitterphoto [31]/Pixabay [32] via Pexels [33]

This project boasts significant environmental benefits due to shifting the campus electricity generation from fossil fuel based to renewable sources. It is estimated that, once implemented, the project will result in 57,000 metric tons of avoided CO2e emissions per year, which is equivalent to 12,102 fuel-burning cars of the road. The project helps Penn State exceed its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 35% by 2020 and also provides the university with $14M in energy cost savings over the 25-year term of PPA agreement. But that is not the end of it. From the very start, the intention was to demonstrate that utility-scale solar can be and should be developed in a sustainable way, with careful consideration of local ecological values.

The bidding process required developers to evaluate the potential impacts on the land and nearby ecosystems by using a mapping tool developed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) [34], a global environmental non-profit organization that advocates responsible use of land and sets priorities for conservation of sensitive and ecologically critical zones across all continents.

Lightsource BP is recognized for building solar farms that enhance environmental benefits to farm lands, preserving biodiversity and agricultural value of land. They worked together with Penn State’s researchers to come up with “environmentally-conscious” system design, which included elements, such as created wildlife habitats, plant communities that promote pollination and help uphold honey bee population, and sheep grazing (Ludt, 2019 [35]). By design, the solar farm allows for co-location of the traditional agriculture benefits (crop and livestock growing) with additional ecosystem services.

The construction of the plant has been completed in 2020, and Penn State announced in October 2020 that the university had begun purchasing solar electricity:

Video: Penn State and Lightsource bp Virtual Ribbon Cutting Event | Lightsource bp USA| Responsible Solar(12:28)

Urban Ecosystems

Portland State University of Oregon, USA, has developed an IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship; federally funded graduate research) on "Ecosystem Services for Urbanizing Regions." They have clearly identified our urban ecosystems as essential as well. Looking at the summary of content from our reading, we should note how closely it all aligns with the integrative design approach in our own text book.

• The global human population living in urban regions: >50% (projected to grow by 2050). This urban-centered ecosystem will intensify pressure on ecosystems that support urban areas.
• Wicked problems [42]: generated by urban population pressure on ecosystems, and their services, require integrative solutions (transdisciplinary) that include multiple fields of study and practice.
• Best practices: formed through collaborations among multiple organizations: nonprofit, public/government, and private.
• Integrative design: collaboration where all relevant stakeholders are brought into the processes of problem scoping, design, and implementation.
• Requires innovative education: to train future scientists and managers in integrative problem-based strategies and design for critical challenges in ecosystem management.

Now, how are you going to think about urban ecosystems services in your own solar design projects?

Yellowdig Discussion: Ultra-Mega Solar - Sambhar Lake Study

Now that we have seen indicators of the growth of solar globally in both rural and urban regions, let us discuss the ultra-mega solar project that was proposed for India...which was ultimately stopped and shifted to the state of Gujarat due to environmental concerns! Let us set the stage as if we were in 2013:

• "India to set up world's largest solar project near Sambhar lake in Rajasthan [43]." Press Trust of India. Sep 21, 2013 at 02:24pm IST
• "India's Plan for World's Largest Solar Farm May Stumble over Wetlands [44]," Saket S., The Guardian, 2/11/2014 (Accessed Nov. 14, 2022)
• Rajasthan, India [45]: the nearby location is Sambhar Lake [46] (a salt source for the state) and Jaipur. [47]
• 4 GW centralized solar power, but it is not clear if it will be PV or CPV or CSP.
• What is there now? Dhirubhai Ambani Solar Park [48] (much less than neighboring Gujarat).
• Search any recently published information on this case. 

Guiding questions:

1. Research this case study and discuss what has happened to the “best laid plans” over the following years (up until today).
2. What factors created barriers when the broader stakeholders become aware of the impacts of ultra-mega solar? 
3. Why was the mega-plan developed for this location, rather than the desert near a sensitive ecosystem?
4. How would 4 types of ecosystems services in the Sambhar Lake area be impacted if the project had moved forward to installation and commissioning?
5. Finally, pose yourself in government at the State level. Think about what alternatives you would have recommended for this ambitious project(s)? 

Tagging

Please post your thoughts and findings on this case on Yellowdig using the following topic tags: 

Under the third topic, feel free to share any existing projects in the US or worldwide that provide good examples of ethical project development and ecosystem conservation.   

Grading and Deadlines

Remember that Yellowdig point earning period ends each Friday. Posting commenting, reacting regularly through the weeek will make the 1000 pts. an easy target and guarantee a high participation grade in the course. Yellowdig discussions will account for 15% of your total grade.

Learning Activity - Sustainability and Ecosystems Services Pitch

Consider a scenario where you are an entrepreneur in a new solar energy technology startup. Your challenge is to integrate the principles of sustainability and environmental justice with your solar technology and generate a convincing pitch for your stakeholders.

Think about your course project proposal and identify the ecosystem services at your locale that need to be maintained, enhanced, or created and how you would address them in your business plan.

These questions become particularly important in formulating the core business philosophy for a specific firm. However, the context of the assignment here still needs to be couched within a real locale and for a well-defined client. (That is why I encourage you to tie it to your project proposal)

Directions

As a deliverable for this learning activity, you will need to create a 5-min video with your pitch to a potential client or stakeholder, specifically outlining the environmental benefits of your project design approach. Here you don't need to talk much about the technical or economic rationale of your project (there is no time for that) - focus on the eco-aspects and questions therein.

Please share your video in th Media Gallery in Canvas.

The style of the video is your preference – whatever works best for you personally. You can use a couple of slides, images, your own footage, or even show some data (if it helps) and narrate over it, or you can just speak to the camera.

Because you need to keep it within 5-min limit and still to be informative, writing a script beforehand is highly helpful, but it is not required for submission.

Be sure to check out other videos and provide comments to your peers.

Submitting your work 

Please follow these steps to share your video in the EME 810 Canvas Media Gallery:  

1. Click on Media Gallery link (left-hand menu in Canvas)

2. Click on +Add Media

3. Select the video you want to add (from Penn State MyMedia)

a. Or click on Add New

b. Click Media Upload

c. Drag and Drop the file or click on Choose a file to upload

4. Click Publish

5. The video will be marked as pending. When the instructor approves your video, it will be added to the Media Gallery.

Grading criteria:

You will be graded on your ability to clearly convey the benefits of your ecosystem services plan to a broad audience. This activity is worth 20 points. Please see the grading rubric in Canvas.

Summary

Lessons 8, 9, and 10 addressed the Goal of Solar Design by helping the client to manage risk in the given locale. We addressed managing risk by looking at uncertainties that are encompassed in the long, generational term time horizons, and by considering societal and environmental impacts of a design. In Lesson 10, you were dealing with broader impacts and motivations driving solar energy project development. By now, you should be familiar with:

• describing the manner in which sustainability ethics can be included in project design as a motivating factor;
• describing the four main classes of goods and services that are supplied by ecosystems: called ecosystems services;
• applying the concept of ecosystems services to renewable energy projects in rural and urban scenarios;
• the context of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [1].

Great work on this lesson, which ties the project design to sustainability consideration in a broader sense!

This is the end of our formal lesson content for the course! We will now spend the rest of the semester developing and presenting our design proposals that synthesize the learning over the last few months. Best of luck to you on that important task!