Claudia and Francisco dove into research about nature protection on wind and solar farms

Trainees at EKOenergy’s Secretariat – Project: Nature on wind and solar farms

This interview brings together two participants of EKOenergy’s traineeship programme. Over three months, Francisco and Claudia dove into research on biodiversity on wind and solar farms around the world. At the end of their programme, we caught up to discuss their findings and reflections on their time at EKOenergy.

While Francisco and Claudia collaborated closely on their research, their motivations and experiences differed. Claudia participated in the programme as part of her master’s degree at LUT University (Finland). Francisco, having already completed his master’s in a similar field, joined EKOenergy with a strong desire to continue research in biodiversity and renewable energy.

During the programme, they had the opportunity to work closely with the EKOenergy’s staff and other team members.

Hello Claudia and Francisco, could you briefly explain the topic of your thesis and how it connects to EKOenergy’s work?

Claudia: So, I am doing a thesis for my master’s degree—which is in a circular economy—and, basically, the point of my thesis is to find ways that solar and wind power plants can increase biodiversity or have some sort of restoration or creation aspect to them. So, we know that these technologies typically decrease biodiversity and have negative impacts on biodiversity, but they’re needed in order to make the energy transition. Wind and solar are the most scalable renewable energy technologies that we have today, so we need to find a way for biodiversity and renewable energy to coexist.

Francisco: I would add that we are also trying to improve biodiversity by minimising many of the negative impacts that these facilities have on wildlife. This is a fairly new topic. There isn’t a lot of research done — there’s some work on impacts, especially of wind facilities, not so much on solar. And because, as Claudia said, it’s growing so fast, we’re trying to see what has already been done to minimise these negative impacts and promote biodiversity in these places.

I have been mostly focusing on solar, which is the fastest growing type of renewable energy, and ways to improve biodiversity in those facilities.

Claudia: I would also like to add that we need clean energy in order to combat climate change, and at the end of the day, biodiversity is going to be negatively affected by climate change, so even increasing renewable energy will help combat biodiversity loss.

How did you choose the topic for your thesis? What made it interesting to you, and what was your personal motivation for pursuing this field?

Francisco: When I started talking to Steven, the Programme Manager of EKOenergy and chief curator in the traineeship programme, we didn’t know exactly which direction we were gonna go. But my background in academіa is with land use change. I have worked with agricultural landscapes before, and I thought a lot of what I have done, or what I know from agricultural landscapes could be applied also to landscapes that are used for energy production, like these. And that’s how it came up.

Claudia: With a minor in energy technology, I am learning about the energy side of things. Through my studies in circular economy, there was a lot of talk about how measuring biodiversity and biodiversity-impacts is the next thing that’s coming up in the field. People traditionally have been looking at carbon equivalency and carbon emissions, and now there’s a lot more research coming out around biodiversity. Combining energy technology and biodiversity was really interesting to me, and there hasn’t been, as Francisco said, much research done in the field. So, I thought I can contribute something that hasn’t been done before.

What global challenges have you identified in balancing renewable energy development with biodiversity conservation? And can you elaborate on any specific challenges you think could be addressed or are particularly difficult to solve?

Francisco: For me, it’s because of my background in this field. I started this research by focusing on the impacts. It’s hard not to, because they can be significant. But as Claudia just said, I know this is the way to go for the energy transition in the long term, the impacts are still way better than fossil fuels. Maybe that was a challenge, because I saw how the amount of work focused on negative impacts. Another challenge was the lack of concrete things done, more concrete answers because you can’t find very good information yet. But this is a very current topic, and every day, new things are being done in this area.

Claudia: I was able to focus less on the impacts. It was interesting to see that, for example, offshore wind turbines can harm birds and cause high bird mortality, but they also create artificial reefs. It seems that the habitat creation happens in a different location than the biodiversity-impacts, and it’s hard to figure out how to help the species being directly impacted by the wind turbines. So, I guess there are two sides: the impacts on certain species and the creation or restoration efforts, but they often involve different species. I didn’t find much about the creation of bird habitats alongside wind power.

Francisco: There is a conflicting thing: just because the energy comes from a renewable energy source, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s sustainable. This is also one of the ideas behind the EKOenergy label. That’s why we are diving into this topic now.

Claudia: I think something to note about our projects, in terms of the energy transition and land use impacts on biodiversity, is that every human activity affects biodiversity. Whether you’re extracting coal from a mountainside or impacting biodiversity through wind turbines, all human activity has negative effects. For me, at least in the beginning, I got really caught up in thinking, ”Oh, this is causing so many negative impacts—maybe we should slow down production or stop scaling.” But that’s not realistic. I think we also can’t focus too much on the negative impacts, because everything we do can have some level of negative impact.

Francisco: Yeah. And the reason why it’s overwhelming is because we had to start there. To minimise the impacts, you need to understand what is happening, right? So, whether we wanted to or not, we got a bit caught up there. But then, there’s light.

How has this experience changed your perspective on renewable energy and its role in biodiversity? We’ve touched on this a bit already, but maybe you have something more to add.

Francisco: I’m definitely more informed—maybe a bit disappointed in the lack of investment in investigating this further, especially considering the rapid expansion of solar farms, which is what I have been focusing on.

Claudia: I think it’s also interesting to see the tensions and collaborations between different stakeholders. For example, energy companies want to build renewable energy projects due to government incentives and, of course, to make money. On the other hand, researchers studying biodiversity aim to push for conservation and restoration. Sometimes these stakeholders work together, but at other times, there are tensions between them. It’s really interesting to see this play out in real time, especially as new journal articles are coming out, since it’s such a new and developing field.

Thanks, Claudia and Francisco, for this interview. And all the best with your following adventures.

-> For more information, also check out Francisco’s article on Deploying solar in harmony with nature.

Published: 22 December 2024 – Interviewer: Yuliia Kabushka