recharge.green – balancing Alpine energy and nature

Overview

The Alps have great potential for the use of renewable energy. Thereby they can make a valuable contribution to mitigating climate change. This, however, means increasing pressures on nature. What could be the impact of such changes on the habitats of animals and plants? How do they affect land use and soil quality? How much renewable energy can reasonably be used? The recharge.green project brings together 16 partners to develop strategies and tools for decision-making on such issues. The analysis and comparison of the costs and benefits of renewable energy, ecosystem services, and potential trade-offs is a key component in this process. 

IIASA Research

Researchers from IIASA's Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystems Group (AFE), Biodiversity and Natural Resources (BNR) program are in charge of the economic-ecological modelling. In recharge.green, IIASA’s central model is the BeWhere model, used to determine optimal renewable energy deployment geographically explicit while explicitly considering trade-offs with other ecosystem services such as biodiversity.

Aims and Activities

The 16 project partners will be developing strategies and tools to show that it is possible to use renewable energies in the Alpine region and at the same time ensure sustainable land use, thus helping preserve the rich biodiversity and the soils of the Alps.

Their activities are subdivided into work packages with the following aims:

• Information and Publicity: making available means of communication to the partners; making stakeholders, politicians, NGOs and young people aware of the developments and results of the project;
• Potentials and Conflicts: producing scenarios to highlight the potential of renewable energies in the Alps as well as presenting the possible conflicts between nature and humans arising from the use of renewable resources;
• Economic Dimension: producing models as a basis for decision-making drawing on the insights of the previous work package;
• Testing and Implementation: testing the models and tools developed in pilot areas; determining whether the results can be transferred to other Alpine regions;
• Dissemination: publicizing the results at events; presenting a transnational handbook for politicians and decision-makers on realizing the proposed solutions.

The project consortium combines participants from all relevant areas for the production of renewable energies and of sustainable land use. This is fundamental in order to harmonize the fields of energy production, land use and species protection.

The results of recharge.green will support the implementation of various EU directives and strategies as well as contribute to the implementation of the Alpine Convention.

Project Results

A set of around 150 scenarios show a whole range of possible development pathways for four types of renewable energy: wind, hydropower, solar, and biomass. These scenarios form the basis of the decision support system aimed at policymakers.
 

The scenarios attempt to provide a holistic range of possibilities for renewable energy development in the Alps. In addition to the mix of renewable energy, policymakers and other stakeholders will be able to set different levels of ecosystem protection, different energy targets, fossil fuel price, and carbon price. Changing these variables will allow them to see how their choices and possible outside influences like fossil fuel price fit in with their goals.