Abstract:
Depletion of fossil fuels, energy crisis, climate change and global warming
are the emerging issues being faced by developing country like. As a result the
trend of power generation is shifting from traditional sources towards renewable
energy sources i.e. solar energy and solar parks across the world. Hence, there
exists a crucial need of understanding the unexplored impacts of large solar parks
on the micro climate and environment. Quaid e Azam Solar park-Bahawalpur has
been taken as a case study. Detailed surface and ambient temperature observations
have been taken over the solar park from samples of different surrounding land use
/ land cover types and also from bare soil samples very adjacent to the solar park
over time span of three years from 2014 to 2017. Surface temperature of QSP has
been found on average 1.5 °c cooler than surrounding bare soil. The surface
temperature of forest cover and built-up area was found lower than bare deserted
soil by approximately 8 °c and 5 °c respectively. The non-parametric trend analysis
on ambient observations concluded insignificant increasing trend of temperature in
Bahawalpur region however the magnitude of that increasing temperature trend at
solar park has been found lower due to average decrease of surface temperature of
solar park by 1.5 °c.
