Assessment of Large Solar Farms on the Micro Climate - A Case Study of Quaid E Azam Solar Park, Bahawalpur

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.