Towards nature inclusive east-west orientated solar parks
report
Solar parks in rural areas are important in the energy transition in the Netherlands as this form of solar energy is very cost effective and can be deployed fast. Potential negative side effects of these solar parks are that they may affect the landscape, the biodiversity and the soil quality underneath the panels. Especially in many east-west oriented solar parks, the panels are placed close together covering almost the entire lot. In such a solar park design the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground is strongly reduced. This will lead to deterioration of the soil quality over the 25-year lifetime of the solar park. East-west oriented solar parks become more popular in the Netherlands as they bring advantages on the business case and on grid connection. This TNO report addresses the question whether these east-west oriented solar parks can be designed differently, in order to mitigate the deterioration of the soil quality. We performed this study using the software tool BIGEYE that calculates both the yield of solar panels and the incidence and intensity of light below and alongside the panels in a solar farm.
Topics
TNO Identifier
956674
Publisher
TNO
Collation
14 p.
Place of publication
Petten