Methodological Framework for Determining the Land Eligibility of Renewable Energy Sources

Methodological Framework for Determining the Land Eligibility of Renewable Energy Sources David Severin Ryberga, Martin Robiniusa, Detlef Stoltena,b
a Institute of Electrochemical Process Engineering (IEK-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Str., 52428 Jülich, Germany b Chair for Fuel Cells, RWTH Aachen University, c/o Institute of Electrochemical Process Engineering (IEK-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm- Johnen-Str., 52428 Jülich, Germany

Abstract—The quantity and distribution of land which is eligible for renewable energy sources is fundamental to the role these technologies will play in future energy systems. As it stands, however, the current state of land eligibility investigation is found to be insufficient to meet the demands of the future energy modelling community. Three key areas are identified as the predominate causes of this; inconsistent criteria definitions, inconsistent or unclear methodologies, and inconsistent dataset usage. To combat these issues, a land eligibility framework is developed and described in detail. The validity of this framework is then shown via the recreation of land eligibility results found in the literature, showing strong agreement in the majority of cases. Following this, the framework is used to perform an evaluation of land eligibility criteria within the European context whereby the relative importance of commonly considered criteria are compared. Index Terms—Renewable energy systems, land eligibility, land availability, social constraints, political constraints, conservation

1. INTRODUCTION As many world economies aim to meet emission reduction targets, countries will need to carefully consider the options available to them when choosing how to develop their energy systems. Choosing a particular developmental pathway is a challenging endeavor, however, given the uncertainties of future climate impacts and evolving sociotechnical landscapes. Therefore, an effort must be made to explore as much as possible the different pathway options available and future scenarios that might arise. In this regard, progress is being made in the form of energy system design models and similar analyses which serve to evaluate these pathways [2-4]. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that the pathways that various countries choose are not independent of one another [5]. For this reason, a globally-applicable solution can only be reached via communication and cooperation between the many research groups and organizations performing these evaluations, as well as consistency between their approaches, such that their results can be compared against each other’s. Judging from recent trends renewable energy sources (RES) will certainly play a significant role in the energy mix of these evaluated developmental pathways [6, 7]. Amongst other technologies, this will likely include on- and off-shore wind turbines, photovoltaic (PV) arrays, concentrated solar power (CSP) parks and biomass processing plants. Well known issues that these technologies entail, such as their intermittent [8, 9] and spatially-dependent [10] power production, have been the focus of intense research for many decades. Nevertheless, many uncertainties and unanswered questions persist that prevent the guarantee of successful implementation of large-scale RES technologies into future energy systems. Of these uncertainties, the influence of sociotechnical criteria, such as natural conservation, disruptions to local populations, and unfit terrain on the distribution of RES technologies across a region is outstanding. When small or otherwise uniform study regions exhibit little variance in their spatial characteristics, the consequences of a variable distribution can be largely ignored or simplified, yet as evaluations progress towards larger spatial scope, this variability quickly becomes a crucial quality to consider [11]. One of the main reasons this issue remains outstanding, however, is that a region’s response to these sociotechnical criteria are dependent not only on the technology being considered, but can vary significantly between one region and another [12]. Moreover, even when investigating a particular technology within a given region, the region’s response to these criteria will likely change over time alongside evolving social preferences and technological advances [13]. Therefore, it is apparent that when evaluating these developmental pathways in broad spatial contexts, the proper treatment of RES components is dependent on a methodological application of the spatially- sensitive sociotechnical criteria governing where these technologies can be installed. The application of sociotechnical criteria is inherently a geospatial question, which has, in fact, received significant attention from the research community [14-16]. One simple avenue in which these criteria affect R

…(Full text truncated)…