POV | Solar parks: Green transition or “Green transition”?

EU is currently pushing member states to increase the share of renewable energy in their energy production. There are two EU documents to guide the enhancement: Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) and REPowerEU. The aim is to encourage the member states to develop renewable energy sources, roll out energy efficiency measures and upgrade electricity grids to improve their efficiency, reliability, and resilience. This paves the way towards a secure and sustainable source of energy for the European Union and helps meet our climate goals.

The reality carrying out the above aims is sometimes different and conflicting with other aims of EU. In many parts of Finland building wind and solar power has led to forest loss. This is since building these energy forms require huge areas; forests are in worse cases cut to be able to build the windmills and solar panels to the area. This is contradicting with the aims of LULUCF directive (maintaining carbon sinks and storages) as well as the aims of the Biodiversity strategy and Nature restoration law.

In North Karelia windmills for energy production are so far not allowed due to our location near Russian border.  The windmills are considered to disturb the radar system of the Finnish defence forces and thus a question of the national security. This is why in our region we must rely on solar energy. The problem is that the areas needed are even bigger than the areas for windmills.

Since we need to be able to maintain our forests, biodiversity and carbon sinks, the Regional Council of North Karelia published position paper to guide the energy construction. In that paper it is stated that the solar parks should primarily be located to wastelands, near already built areas and near the power lines and to avoid cutting forest. We need renewable energy, but not with any price. We need to be able to answer also to the other demands set for us by EU and to maintain our nature and fight against the climate change by preserving our carbon sinks. We are sure that by carefully planning the land use we can solve this problem.

Sari Koivula

The author works as a forest and climate expert at the Regional Council of North Karelia.