Leading as much as Large Scale Solar Southern Europe, held in Athens, Greece, on 2-3 July, PV Tech spoke with Alejandra Pérez-Plá, regional supervisor – Mediterranean on the monetary advisory agency Global Capital Finance concerning the challenges associated to land acquisition for utility-scale photo voltaic PV tasks in Southern Europe, tips on how to handle these difficulty and grid modernization.
Pérez-Pla will average a panel on the financing of large-scale photo voltaic PV tasks in Southern Europe on the second day of the occasion.
PV Tech: What are the challenges related to land acquisition for large-scale photo voltaic PV tasks?
Alejandra Pérez-Pla: In Southern Europe, buying land for large-scale photo voltaic tasks faces many challenges. First, outdoors of Spain, appropriate land is commonly scarce because of the assorted topography of the area, which incorporates mountainous areas and densely populated areas. The land ought to be comparatively flat, freed from heavy vegetation, not vulnerable to flooding and freed from archaeological artifacts, which restrict the usable areas.
The environmental impression is one other necessary concern as Southern Europe is house to quite a lot of biodiversity and guarded pure areas, which require detailed environmental evaluation and impression research. Regulatory hurdles will be extra advanced on account of completely different and strict land use rules and zoning legal guidelines in numerous nations and areas.
Community opposition may also be sturdy, pushed by considerations about visible impacts, potential declines in property values, and the need to protect agricultural land and landscapes. In addition, competitors for land use, particularly for agriculture and tourism, is a major problem on this area.
The finest websites are sometimes prime agricultural land, and there may be rising resistance to changing such with utility-scale photo voltaic PV. Managing these challenges in Southern Europe requires a complete and country-specific method.
What will be finished to make sure the very best land and scale back any impression on the surroundings and group?
Conducting a radical web site evaluation is important to establish places with minimal environmental and group impacts. Early and lively engagement with native communities might help handle considerations and construct assist for tasks. This contains clear communication concerning the financial and environmental advantages of photo voltaic power and measures taken to reduce any unfavorable impacts. Regulatory specialists conversant in native legal guidelines and rules are important for navigating advanced allowing processes effectively.
Offering engaging land lease agreements to landowners will encourage participation and assist. Agrivoltaics (agriPV) has grow to be a significant strategic benefit. Implementing environmental mitigation measures, equivalent to utilizing degraded land or creating wildlife corridors, might help scale back the ecological footprint of photo voltaic tasks.
How to answer grid modernization to assist the mixing of extra photo voltaic power?
Grid upgrades in Southern Europe are important for supporting the rising integration of photo voltaic power. The major initiatives to restrict grid upgrades embrace the implementation of good grid applied sciences, which contain superior metering infrastructure, real-time monitoring and automated management methods to raised handle distributed power assets.
Energy storage methods, equivalent to batteries, are deployed to handle variability in photo voltaic era and supply grid stability by load shifting. Improving grid flexibility by demand response packages, distributed era and microgrids can also be a precedence.
Significant investments are being made in upgrading transmission infrastructure to accommodate extra renewable power capability and facilitate the transportation of electrical energy from solar-rich areas to demand facilities.
In addition, superior inverters are used to offer grid assist capabilities equivalent to voltage regulation and frequency response. European Union funding packages, such because the Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon Europe, play a key position in financing grid modernization tasks. A important facet of a well timed development of renewable power to realize political targets is the acceleration of grid enchancment measures.
How do you see the expansion of superior applied sciences equivalent to agriPV, inexperienced hydrogen or floating photo voltaic?
Technologies equivalent to agriPV, inexperienced hydrogen and floating photo voltaic have nice progress potential in Southern Europe. AgriPV, which mixes solar energy with agriculture, permits twin use of land and offers extra earnings to farmers. This is especially engaging in areas the place agriculture is the dominant land use.
Green hydrogen, produced utilizing photo voltaic power by electrolysis, has emerged as a key expertise for decarbonizing the heavy business and transportation sectors. Southern Europe’s considerable photo voltaic assets make it a really perfect area for inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing, and by mixing pure fuel with current pipelines, upgrading the grid is much less important.
Floating photo voltaic, the place panels are put in on our bodies of water, can scale back conflicts with land use and enhance effectivity because of the cooling impact of water. Due to the big variety of reservoirs and water our bodies in Southern Europe, this expertise affords nice potential for growth.
| PV Tech writer Solar Media will arrange the second version of Large Scale Solar Southern Europe in Athens, Greece, from 2-3 July 2024. The occasion will concentrate on an ever-growing market equivalent to Southern Europe which there might be a full program of panels, shows and hearth chats from business leaders answerable for constructing photo voltaic PV tasks in Greece, Turkey and Croatia. For extra data, together with tips on how to attend, please go to the official web site. |