The potential land requirements and related land use change emissions of solar energy

Abstract

Although the transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land, the potential impacts driven by solar energy remain unexplored. In this work, the potential solar land requirements and related land use change emissions are computed for the EU, India, Japan and South Korea. A novel method is developed within an integrated assessment model which links socioeconomic, energy, land and climate systems. At 25–80% penetration in the electricity mix of those regions by 2050, we find that solar energy may occupy 0.5–5% of total land. The resulting land cover changes, including indirect effects, will likely cause a net release of carbon ranging from 0 to 50 gCO2/kWh, depending on the region, scale of expansion, solar technology efficiency and land management practices in solar parks. Hence, a coordinated planning and regulation of new solar energy infrastructures should be enforced to avoid a significant increase in their life cycle emissions through terrestrial carbon losses.

Modelling land system evolution and dynamics of terrestrial carbon stocks in the Luanhe River Basin, China: a scenario analysis of trade-offs and synergies between sustainable development goals

“…Another limitation is due to the uncertainty and emerging knowledge after the scenarios for this study were developed. China recently announced the climate goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, the rapid introduction of renewable energy for decarbonisation and potential for social–technological innovations for the carbon neutrality target could also impact future land systems change (Bowyer and Kretschmer 2010 ; Poggi et al 2018 ; van de Ven et al 2021 ; Xiao et al 2021 ), and the achievement of SDGs, such as SDG 9: Industry, innovation, and infrastructure and SDG 17: Partnership for the goals (Hinson et al 2019 ; Sinha et al 2020 ; Walsh et al 2020 ). Nevertheless, these effects have not been fully considered by the SSP scenarios used in this study.…”

The role of soils in provision of energy

“…Global generation of power by solar PV in 2018 was 5.85 × 10 8 MWh yr −1 (2.11 × 10 18 J yr −1 ) in 2018 [186], which equates to an area of only 4.1 × 10 2 to 1.1 × 10 3 km 2 (0.0003–0.0007% of global land area), but this is projected to increase to 0.5–5% of the total land area by 2050 [181]. Depending on the soil, location, previous land use and management of vegetation under solar panels, this could result in soil C losses of up to 3.79 × 10 −9 g J −1 [181]. Geothermal power generated in 2018 was only 9.0 × 10 7 MWh yr −1 (3.24 × 10 17 J yr −1 ) [187], occupying an area of land less than 4.2 × 10 1 km 2 , which is only 0.00003% of global land area.…”

“…Installed global hydropower capacity in 2018 generated 4.2 × 10 9 MWh yr −1 (1.51 × 10 19 J yr −1 [185]), which would equate to a slightly larger land area of 2.1 × 10 4 to 4.2 × 10 4 km 2 worldwide, equivalent to 0.01-0.03% of the global land area [68]. Global generation of power by solar PV in 2018 was 5.85 × 10 8 MWh yr −1 (2.11 × 10 18 J yr −1 ) in 2018 [186], which equates to an area of only 4.1 × 10 2 to 1.1 × 10 3 km 2 (0.0003-0.0007% of global land area), but this is projected to increase to 0.5-5% of the total land area by 2050 [181]. Depending on the soil, location, previous land use and management of vegetation under solar panels, this could result in soil C losses of up to 3.79 × 10 −9 g J −1 [181].…”

“…The global average land footprint for solar photovoltaic (PV) power is currently very low (0.7-1.8 m 2 MWh −1 (1.94-5.00 × 10 −10 m 2 J −1 )), owing to solar energy being produced on rooftops and land that is unsuitable for cultivation or forest cover [179,180]. However, as market penetration is projected to increase, by 2050 the land footprint is likely to increase to 6-30 m 2 MW h −1 (1.67 × 10 −9 to 8.33×10 −9 m 2 J −1 ), depending on irradiance and latitude [181]. For geothermal schemes, the land footprint depends on the geothermal source, type of energy conversion used, power capacity, cooling system and location of wells, pipelines, substations and auxiliary buildings [182], but is estimated to be only 0.03-0.40 m 2 MW h −1 (0.92 × 10 −12 to 1.29 × 10 −10 m 2 J −1 ) [179,180], so can be considered to be negligible at the present time.…”

Developing the Food, Water, and Energy Nexus for Food and Energy Scenarios with the World Trade Model

“…Within the present WTM-RCOT database, (as shown in Table S2), we work with 16 technologies of crop production (eight crops, with two irrigated/dryland production for each); eight electricity technology options, and three water technologies (one for water distribution and two for water treatment technologies), building further on the developments in [18,20,41] with a database developed from GTAP9. The disaggregation of the original energy and water sectors in GTAP is based on the EXIOBASE database [64,65], implying a disaggregation in the A matrices, but also factor uses, which had not been considered earlier, such as, for example, the land requirements of technologies such as solar [66] (apart from those of biomass or hydro).…”