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How Can Solar Power Arrays Co-exist with Nature?

How Can Solar Power Arrays Co-exist with Nature?

Source:Kuo-Tai Liu

Installing renewable power systems in pristine environments has often sparked controversy, but the concept may still have a future if the stakeholders are committed to a common good, as a solar energy project in Chiayi County is showing.

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How Can Solar Power Arrays Co-exist with Nature?

By Kwangyin Liu
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 700 )

The Budai Salt Pan Wetlands in Chiayi County serve as one of the favorite “restaurants” for black-faced spoonbills feeding during their stop in Taiwan on their winter migration. 

“They love to eat small fish and shrimp,” said Chen Jian-cheng (陳建誠), a member of the Taiwan Black-Faced Spoonbill Conservation Association’s Executive Council. 

The salt fields have been around since the Japanese colonial era, and because they have been left untouched by human development for decades, they offer a pristine natural setting ideal for bird watching.

The wetlands in Chiayi often attract black-faced spoonbills to feed during the winter. Vena Energy has maintained a water source in the ecological conservation area of its solar power site, hoping to create more places for birds to dine.

Mingus Solar Project: Building a Migratory Bird Canteen

In mid-May, the Mingus Solar Project Education Center organized a presentation updating the results of its survey of the Budai salt fields environment near its solar array. 

On the stage discussing the bird ecology of the Budai Salt Pan Wetlands and the results of soil testing was Ken-ti Hu (胡根地), executive director of Vena Energy Taiwan.

Understanding why an ecosystem for birds was of concern to a solar power company requires going back three years in time, when a pivotal figure in the project turned out to be a bird-loving academic.  

Early on when Vena Energy first proposed installing a solar panel array in the Budai Salt Pan wetlands, that academic, Yih-tsong Ueng (翁義聰), a professor in Kun Shan University’s Department of Environmental Engineering, was among the first to voice his opposition.

A former head of the conservation group Wetlands Taiwan, Ueng is the ultimate bird lover, having written a book on the black-winged stilt found in the wetlands and promoted the Taijiang National Park and the Sicao Wildlife Refuge.

Eventually, however, Ueng had to admit defeat: “

There was nothing I could do. They won the tender,” he recalled. Yet Ueng still felt he could influence the overall outcome by changing his approach from opposition to advocacy, and he decided to work with the energy company to secure as much space as possible for his beloved wild birds. 

Of the original 80 hectares allotted to the solar power project, Vena Energy set aside about 30 percent of the area, or more than 20 hectares, for use as an ecological conservation area. 

“We asked them at the time to set aside about 30 percent of the land, and block off a specific area. They did that,” Ueng said. 

“I decided to help them, otherwise they wouldn’t have done it right,” he said, explaining why he ended up serving as a consultant on the project.

When Vena Energy won the tender for the project in 2017, the 80-hectare solar power plant was to be Taiwan’s biggest. It will soon be surpassed in size by many projects in the works, including Taipower’s 140-hectare photovoltaic power station to be set up in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park and a 213-hectare facility Taipower that is currently being built in the Tainan salt pan wetlands.  

Taiwan’s government has set a goal of renewable energy accounting for 20 percent of Taiwan’s overall electricity mix by 2025, and solar power represents an important part of that. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has targeted installed solar capacity of 20 GW (1 GW = 1 million KW) by then, of which 6 GW is to be installed on rooftops and 14 GW ground mounted. 

But progress on the ground mounted solar panel arrays has lagged behind, with installed capacity less than 1 GW to date, largely because finding large swathes of land in Taiwan as homes for ground-mounted installations is easier said than done.

“The biggest challenge is the limited amount of land and dense population,” said Taiwan Institute of Economic Research Wu Tsai-yi (吳再益), who has studied energy transformation for many years.  

Land in Taiwan is extremely expensive and using it to install power generating facilities has often been nothing more than a last resort.

20-year Ecological Monitoring Pledge

So it is not surprising that compared to China or the United States, Taiwan is engaging in solar power on a much smaller scale. The U.S., for instance, is planning a solar power installation in Nevada that will be 36 times the size of Vena Energy’s Mingus project.

Given its land limitations, how can Taiwan develop ground-mounted solar power?

Simply put, to move quickly, first take things slowly. 

The Mingus project has stood out because it was the first solar power plant in Taiwan to commit to 20 years of ecological monitoring.

To Lu-han Chen(陳律翰), a Vena Energy senior project manager, the solar power development project has evolved into a master class on ecosystems.

He has learned that because the salt pan wetlands have plenty of water, they are home to an abundance of small fish and shrimp, which attracts birds to feed there. “We’re basically helping preserve an area where black-faced spoonbills can eat,” he said.

That’s not to say the solar panel array has had a positive effect on bird populations in the area.

Kuan-chieh Hung (洪貫捷), a research assistant at the Chinese Wild Bird Federation who is responsible for monitoring birds at the solar power plant site, admitted that the number of birds seen in the area since the project was completed in September 2019 has fallen compared to observations from two years earlier. 

“Our next task will be to manage the water level in the conservation area to improve the quality of the habitat,” he said.

With that in mind, Vena Energy has channeled water from neighboring areas into the conservation area during the dry season to maintain a healthy environment for its “black-faced spoonbill restaurant.”

This has been the first solar power project of its kind in Taiwan in which energy developers have collaborated with community groups and pledged 20 years of ecological monitoring. Vena Energy may in the future apply to establish the area as an “Environmental Education Venue” to help with community building.

As a renewable energy operator, Vena Energy’s Hu said he hoped to ensure the coexistence of the power generation sector and the natural environment and turn the Mingus power plant into a model in Taiwan for ecological photovoltaic installations.

“Reducing conflicts with the environment makes it easier for everybody to move forward,” he said.

The MOEA still has many solar projects in the pipeline, and executive and legislative agencies are hoping, like Hu, that this partnership model will serve as the benchmark for future solar power developments. 

Guiding Principle for Power Plants: the Common Good

Previous plans to have power plants coexist with nature in coastal or farming areas have sparked disputes. To prevent such controversies in the future, Executive Yuan Office of Energy and Carbon Reduction Chief Executive Lin Tzu-lun (林子倫) and the MOEA are pushing an environmental and social review mechanism for solar power development aimed at standardizing feasibility assessments. 

Lin applauded the Mingus project as a positive example because the operator stayed in communication with bird groups and the Council of Agriculture’s Endemic Species Research Institute throughout the process.

The challenge now is how to replicate this model in future projects, and Lin believed the review mechanism can help. Once it is in place, Lin said, it will check whether a project has openly shared information and allowed citizen participation, and whether it has shown concern for its impact on the surrounding environment and community.

Tsai Hui-sun (蔡卉荀), director of Citizen of the Earth Taiwan, looked forward to the day when energy company operators that apply to the Energy Bureau for a permit to set up a power installation will also have to undergo the environmental and social check.

“It won’t be another environmental impact assessment. It will simply let developers know what kind of social or environmental costs they may face if they set up a power plant in a certain place so they can think about it more clearly before making a decision,” she said. 

Hung Sheng-han (洪申翰), a legislator with the governing Democratic Progressive Party who has been involved in the environmental movement, felt the environmental and social review is necessary. He said most local governments are eager to promote alternative energy but are not sure how to handle controversies.

“A tool that helps resolve disputes will make it possible for civil servants to know what to do in promoting renewable energy development,” he said.

In fact, Vena Energy is facing a dilemma with another project for which it won a tender. In 2017, the Taitung County government held a tender for producing solar power on a 160-hectare plot of land in the Zhiben Wetlands, won by Vena Energy. 

But the site tendered involves the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples, and the Puyuma people in Katratripulr village have not felt their wishes have been respected by the county government and power operator, and they continue to protest the project.

Vena Energy’s Hu admitted that his company will have to spend more time and patience on this project discussing the issues with the Puyuma group, but he said the hope ultimately is to find a solution that is beneficial to both sides.

Have you read?
♦ Will a 20-Year-Old Forest be Chopped Down to Produce Solar Power?
♦ Post COVID-19, Time to Make Peace with Our Earth
♦ Taiwan’s Renewable Market Revolution Taking Shape

Translated by Luke Sabatier
Uploaded by Judy Lu

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