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Expert Interviews

Dr. Zhiyuan Yang Shares Why Impact Assessments for Solar Farms are Critical for Clients in the United Kingdom

Headshot of Dr. Zhiyuan Yang

Dr. Zhiyuan Yang is Tetra Tech’s Air Quality Consultancy Lead for our team in the UK focussed on noise, air quality, lighting, and odour.

With more than 20 years of experience in his field, Zhiyuan plays an instrumental role in developing air quality services to support our clients with solar farm developments.

Question:

Why are solar farm impact assessments important?

It is estimated that solar farms in the UK account for anywhere between 10 to 30 per cent of the UK’s energy generation. The UK’s Clean Power Action Plan seeks 45–47 gigawatts of installed solar capacity by 2030. Solar farms play a significant role in achieving this goal as they occupy vast areas of open land, generating from 1 megawatt (MW) to over 2,000 MW in capacity.

Whilst this is an exciting avenue to pursue to meet the ambitious goals of the Clean Power plan, there have challenges with solar farms. Over the past few years, several media reports have linked solar farm fire incidents with the increase of solar farm generation capacities. If we are to increase solar farms over the next five years, we expect to see more of these fire incident reports in the future.

Proactively, solar farm fire impact assessment services must be developed by the UK Health and Security Agency. And any solar farm development application needs to consider environmental public health whilst also controlling the emissions of accident- or fire-related substances.

Question:

How can solar farm developers use solar farm impact assessments to ensure safe, sustainable projects?

Fire impact assessments are very complicated and complex evaluations that consist of combustion, radiation, turbulence, fluid dynamics, and other physical and chemical processes. For our clients, solar farm developers, it’s about helping them to identify the risks so safety measures can be put in place early.

There are a multitude of risks to consider including short-term effects of pollutants on surrounding residential receptors, and whether the pollutant levels breech the relevant UK air quality objectives for the prevention of human health. We must also consider the risk to humans associated with the UK Daily Air Quality Index (DAQI), smoke exposure levels, and Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGLs).

When conducting an impact assessment, we analyse a comprehensive set of factors:

  • Type of fires, for example, a solar panel fire, a battery energy storage system (BESS) fire or a substation fire
  • What existing materials and substances could increase the chances of a fire
  • Identification of people and environments at risk
  • Identification of appropriate methods and air dispersion models to assess the different types of fire
  • Prediction of air quality impacts on the surrounding environment
  • Identification of the fire safety measures to keep people and environment safe
Question:

How can Tetra Tech help our clients to develop solar farms safely as they endeavor to meet the ambitious goals of the Clean Power plan?

Tetra Tech has deep expertise in supporting clients with solar farm fire impact assessments. We have honed our approach by combining accredited, scientific research with our innovative air quality and fire expertise. No solar farm is too small or too large for us to assess and we work closely with developers to consider the risk factors and make recommendations for development. Ultimately, the assessment work that we do provides both regulators and the public with confidence in the long-term sustainability and viability of solar energy investments.

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