Scientists call on Government to change policies to boost nature on UK solar farms - Lancaster University

Solar farms in the UK could bring benefits for nature as well as provide low carbon energy - but unless policies change, potential benefits for nature could be squandered, scientists argue.

As well as providing low carbon energy, solar farms could offer vital space for nature to thrive if the solar industry is incentivised to locate, construct and manage sites appropriately, a team of researchers and industry experts say in a new paper published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology.

The UK’s solar farms currently generate approximately 8.6 GW – enough to meet around one sixth of the country’s peak electricity demand. To meet its international climate commitments, some estimates show that the UK will need to install in the order of 70,000 hectares of solar farms by the mid 2030s.

“If located in the right places and managed correctly, solar farms have great potential to restore degraded habitats and help meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, although not every species may benefit,” said Professor Alona Armstrong of Lancaster University and co-author of the paper. “Some in the solar industry embed nature benefits into the design of solar farms and their management, but this approach is not universal.”

Professor Piran White of the University of York and co-author of the paper added: “There is considerable potential for more solar farms to be managed for the benefit of nature, so that existing solar farms and any new solar farms, such as those recently approved by the new Government, can contribute to mitigating the ecological crisis as well as the climate crisis.”