Trying to a future the place wind & photo voltaic farms are buzzing with biodiversity…
This summer time Octopus Power had been excited to announce the acquisition of our sister firm, Octopus Renewables, who handle over 300 renewable power tasks throughout Europe, producing sufficient power annually to energy round 1.5 million properties. Their large £3.4 billion renewables portfolio is now operated by Octopus Power Technology (of which now Octopus Renewables is a component) – making Octopus Power Europe’s largest traders in photo voltaic power, with the potential to maintain almost 1 million tonnes of CO2 from getting into the environment yearly, and bringing inexperienced provide, power tech and renewable era all below one roof.
Because the variety of wind & photo voltaic farms in our portfolio will increase, we’ve been interested by all the opposite methods we will use our renewable websites to assist the planet. In spite of everything, photo voltaic vegetation and wind farms aren’t simply good for the clear, inexperienced electrons they generate – they’re additionally harbour useful inexperienced areas, with the potential to harbour an abundance of fantastic wildlife.
To make sure that our areas are put to good use there are finest practices in place. Folks typically don’t contemplate the grassy areas that so typically encompass hovering wind generators or glistening photo voltaic panel seas, however every website is managed with the aim of selling biodiversity and decreasing environmental injury (websites have to attract up particular ‘habitat administration methods as a part of their planning permission). There are a great deal of methods, from planting wildflowers in discipline margins and managing land with grazing animals to hen packing containers and bug lodges. With that in thoughts, many renewable operators have been going the additional mile to create habitat for UK wildlife and Octopus Power Technology are actively in search of methods to advertise biodiversity on the websites they handle.
An ecological emergency
It couldn’t be a extra essential time to face up for biodiversity. In 2016, out of 218 nations, the UK ranked 189th in response to the ‘biodiversity intactness index’. During the last 100 years, the UK has misplaced 97% of its meadows and different species-rich grasslands, with vegetation such because the Lamb Succory and the Downy Hemp-nettle having gone extinct, and the Ghost Orchid and Wooden Calamint turning into critically endangered.
With that, populations of the UK’s most essential wildlife have fallen by 60% since 1970, with numbers of farmland birds declining by over 55%, and 1 / 4 of native mammals now threatened by extinction.
Pollinators akin to bees and butterflies are of explicit concern – a 3rd of British bumblebee species are actually on the point of extinction. As an integral a part of ecosystems all over the place, a decline within the variety of pollinators is having a large knock on impact, impacting organisms the world over. This consists of us. In keeping with the UN, as a lot as $577 billion of our annual meals manufacturing depends on pollination.
Managing land when sustainability is essential
The extra biodiverse an space is, the extra dwelling issues it will probably maintain. Grazing advantages biodiversity in an entire host of how. Not like the neat end you count on from a garden mower, sheep disturb the earth as they munch away, leaving a mishmash mosaic of naked floor and grassy tufts that modify in peak. This topological variety is essential for biodiversity, permitting micro-habitats that present meals and shelter for all kinds of species to flourish.
Research have additionally proven that managing land with grazing can truly improve carbon sequestration. In different phrases, extra carbon is captured and saved within the soil, stopping it from getting into the environment. This may appear trivial, however soil is the world’s largest land-based carbon storage system. With grasslands making up roughly 40% of the Earth’s floor, soil scientists estimate that if everyone adopted applicable land administration practices we’d be capable to offset about a 3rd of annual greenhouse-gas emissions.
Right now one third (and counting) of Octopus Power Technology’s websites are grazed by sheep, who’ve been launched to maintain the lengthy grass in examine all year long. This association pleases herders and engineers alike – the sheep get a free meal and operators don’t have to fret about grass shading their photo voltaic panels.
Discovering pure options
While the sheep assist to maintain issues below management, grassy areas spring to life when they’re left alone fully. A few of Octopus Power Generaton’s websites go for a extra pure method, setting patches of land apart for ‘rewilding’. The various wildflower meadows help pollinators at each stage of their life cycle, offering pollen and nectar assets all through the Spring and Summer time months.
For some websites, like giant wind farms, this is usually a improbable approach to encourage native pollinators and different critters again to locations the place they haven’t been seen in years.
In different circumstances, particularly the place lengthy grasses and tall flowers is usually a hearth hazard or block photo voltaic panels, this form of large-scale rewilding isn’t appropriate. Octopus Power Technology, nonetheless, are exploring new methods to do that each on and off website sooner or later. Operators can select to plant rigorously chosen wildflower meadows, or to rewild hedge rows and discipline boundaries. On this approach, sowing native vegetation akin to yellow rattle, hen’s-foot trefoil and purple clover may help present habitat for a bigger number of bugs and organisms, together with a number of endangered species of bumblebee.
There are a number of different choices too. Beehives, like those Octopus Power Technology put in close to one photo voltaic website it manages in Lincolnshire, are one other good approach to help pollinators. With 70% of ponds having vanished from the British Countryside, creating or revitalising water options can play a significant function in bettering the wealth of species, from toads and newts to herons and grass snakes. After which there’s additionally the chance to put in a variety of pure actual property, be that hen and bat packing containers, hedgehog properties, or bug lodges.
Methods to help your native wildlife this winter
It’s essential to do not forget that every renewable website is exclusive, and there’s no ‘one dimension suits all’ method to supporting biodiversity. As in your native space or backyard, whether or not you’re surrounded by rolling hills, dwell near a river or in a bustling metropolis, the forms of wildlife and their wants differ; and naturally the quantity of area obtainable is usually a restriction too.
There are a large number of how to assist help native biodiversity all through the seasons, so we mustn’t overlook that as everybody cosies up for winter, the animals are too. Leaving sheltered areas or objective constructed packing containers give critters a protected area to cover from the weather and in some circumstances rear their younger. Even gathering a pile of leaves or a bundle of trimmed stems can create a protected residence for bugs and hedgehogs. Contemporary water and small quantities of seeds, mealworms and berries can see birds and thru wintery climate, prepared for the spring when no frost makes for the proper time to plant nectar wealthy flowers, sew a small wildflower meadow or develop a hedgerow for meals & shelter going ahead.
What’s subsequent for inexperienced era?
As an increasing number of of the UK’s energy comes from renewables, ecologically-minded inexperienced turbines are going to change into an increasing number of essential. Given declining biodiversity within the UK, it’s important that all of us go above and past to help our declining wildlife populations. One in all Octopus Power Technology’s core missions is to guard and improve environmental potential. With that in thoughts, they’re eager to discover new, inventive ways in which they’ll lend nature a hand throughout the renewable websites they handle – and past – working with native communities and landowners to develop new methods that profit wildlife all over the place. Along with Octopus Power Technology, we’re excited to see what the longer term holds.
By Becky Boulton and Jackson Howarth