A new approach towards comparing environmental impacts from small-scale hydropower, large-scale hydropower and wind power

Abstract

In 2012 did Norway, in collaboration with Sweden, agree on a common energy certificate market where both countries set a goal for producing 67, 5 TWh of renewable energy within the year 2020. These certificates are energy neutral, but they are expected to increase the building of small-scale hydropower and wind power plants. This has created much debate surround the environmental impacts and habitat fragmentations which occur from the increased building, and more knowledge is needed to establish better mitigation measures.

This thesis is therefore built on the need for more knowledge of the impacts from Norway’s two largest renewable energy resources: hydropower and wind power. I have tried to make a new methodological approach for mapping environmental impacts from three production types: small-scale hydropower, large-scale hydropower, and wind power, based on the same amount of annually produced energy. The mapped impacts are from four parameters: area directly affected by the production site, the visibility of the plant, amount of red listed species present within a radius of 2 and 10 kilometers, and amount of overlap with encroachment-free (INON) areas mapped by the Directorate for nature management in 2008.

This new methodological approach is based in the program geographic information systems (GIS) using data downloaded from the Norwegian Mapping Authority and Artsdatabanken. The four parameters which are analyzed in GIS explores how the impacts from the three different power production types differ, and if the results can be used for a comparison of environmental impacts across different types of energy production.