Abstract
Global energy demand is increasing as greenhouse gas driven climate change progresses, making renewable energy sources critical to future sustainable power provision. Land-based wind and solar electricity generation technologies are rapidly expanding, yet our understanding of their operational effects on biological carbon cycling in hosting ecosystems is limited. Wind turbines and photovoltaic panels can significantly change local ground-level climate by a magnitude that could affect the fundamental plant–soil processes that govern carbon dynamics. We believe that understanding the possible effects of changes in ground-level microclimates on these phenomena is crucial to reducing uncertainty of the true renewable energy carbon cost and to maximize beneficial effects. In this Opinions article, we examine the potential for the microclimatic effects of these land-based renewable energy sources to alter plant–soil carbon cycling, hypothesize likely effects and identify critical knowledge gaps for future carbon research.
Highlights
This Opinion piece is prompted by our belief that meeting energy demands in a sustainable manner is one, if not the, largest challenge we face today
Interactions studied under climate change scenarios, and we argue others that are specific to land-based renewables (LBR)-induced ground-level microclimates, are likely to contribute to the regulation of plant–soil C cycling and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in landscapes hosting LBR
The potential to increase C benefits from ground-level changes in microclimate needs to be examined, and placed in the broader context of the full C costs of electricity produced by LBRs; we argue that there is much scope to maximize beneficial effects
Summary
This Opinion piece is prompted by our belief that meeting energy demands in a sustainable manner is one, if not the, largest challenge we face today. We argue the effects of wind farms and solar parks on the local climate may, alter the C cycle directly through changes in temperature (air and soil), precipitation and evapotranspiration (and soil moisture) and the balance of direct and diffuse radiation (Fig. 2), all of which are proven to influence terrestrial C cycling (Knapp et al, 2002; Ma et al, 2007; Dorrepaal et al, 2009; Mercado et al, 2009; Joos et al, 2010).
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