Our Power Our Planet: What are the impacts of Renewable Energy on the Environment?

In this episode of EnvCast, we discuss the Environment Top 5 things to consider about renewable energy for Earth Day's theme of Our Power Our Planet. We cover Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), peatland impacts, circular economy and what that looks like for renewable projects, the grid reform and what people should consider.

This Earth Day special episode of EnvCast features two Chartered Environmentalists both working in Scotland within the renewable energy sphere, David Linsley-Hood, Technical Director at Locogen and Julie Bhatti SSER's Onshore Wind Solar and Battery Lead Environmental Manager. 

Topics:

BNG 3:33

Peatlands 16:00

Circular Economy 27:05

Grid Reform 35:58

Collaboration 41:16

Speaker bios: 

Julie Bhatti is a Chartered Environmentalist and is the Scotland Vice President (elect) for CIEEM. With a background in freshwater ecology, environmental regulation and policy, she has over 25 years experience in the public and private sectors. She is SSER's Onshore Wind Solar and Battery Lead Environmental Manager. Her remit covers all phases of development, construction and operation of onshore renewables across the Island of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. She and her team of environmental advisors are responsible for ensuring compliance with environmental legislation and planning obligations at all project and operational phases.

Extra resources:

Biodiversity net gain - GOV.UK

Satellites track "bog breathing" to help monitor peatlands | NatureScot

National Planning Framework 4 - gov.scot

Professional registration:

Registered status as a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP) or Registered Environmental Technician (REnvTech) are available. To find out more about our registrations visit: https://socenv.org.uk/professional-re... 

environment, peatland, bng, biodiversity, circular economy, renewable energy, renewable energy projects, environmental, environment, sustainability, conservation, eco-friendly, green living, conservation, sustainable development, natural resources, green technology, carbon, environmental policy, chartered environmentalist, professional development, educational, environment education, green jobs, green business, green skills.

Check out our other platforms:

YouTube: Society for the Environment //
Website: socenv.org.uk // LinkedIn: society-for-the-environment

Chapters

• 3:33 Biodiversity net gain
• 16:00 Peatland impacts
• 27:05 Circular Economy
• 35:58 Grid Reform
• 41:16 Collaboration

Transcript

0:00
 We actually last year completed one of the the first multi turbine wind farm with recycled wind turbines in the UK.

 0:08
 If you think about NPF 4 having come in in 2023, we're still waiting for a metric.

 0:15
 So that's kind of led to some companies just developing their own because they want to do the right thing.

 0:21
 And that includes my own company.

 0:25
Welcome to the Society for the Environment EnvCast, where we feature special guests highlighting an environment top five each month.

 0:33
 Each month, we welcome 2 environment professionals to explore what they believe to be the top five things to consider within a particular topic.

 0:41
 Topics range from climate to leadership, agriculture to AI, and everything in between.

 0:49
 Look out for some curveballs in the top five each month.

 0:51
 And remember, we can't cover every important thing within a topic.

 0:55
 Our aim is to uncover how you can be part of the solution, to learn from the experts and to sometimes think outside of the box as we strive for a sustainable future.

 1:05
 Enjoy the episode.

 1:10
 Hello and welcome back to EnvCast for another Environment Top Five, this time focusing on renewable energy.

 1:16
 I'm Phil from the Society for the Environment and your podcast host for today.

 1:21
 As always, we'll be picking the brains of registered environmental professionals and exploring key topics from different perspectives to expand our collective knowledge and make more impact.

 1:31
 Today we are aligning with the theme of Earth Day 2025, Our Power, Our Planet, which invites everyone around the globe to invite to to unite behind renewable energy and to triple global generation of clean electricity by 20-30, which is interesting, might not get into that particular stat, but we're going to be covering renewable energy slightly more broadly.

 1:58
 To look into the top five things for professionals to consider in the renewable energy world, we're joined by two Chartered Environmentalists.

 2:07
 Their biographies are in the podcast description, but as an extremely short introduction, I'm very pleased to be joined by Julie Bhatti, who is a chartered Environmentalist via their membership of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.

 2:22
 Or CIEEM for short.

 2:24
 Julie is the onshore wind, solar and battery Lead Environment Manager at SSE Renewables, which is quite the job title, and David Linsley-Hood, a chartered environmentalist via their membership of the Energy Institute.

 2:40
 David is technical and innovation director at Locogen.

 2:45
 A chartered environmentalist employer champion organization no less.

 2:48
 So a very warm welcome to you both.

 2:50
 Welcome to the podcast.

 2:53
 Thank you, thank you.

 2:55
 And we have two chartered environmentalists in Scotland, which wasn't planned, but not a bad place to be, it's fair to say.

 3:03
 So let's get straight into the top five.

 3:06
 We're going to alternate between Julie and David for the first four.

 3:10
 And then the final item is for them to agree on as a top thing to consider around renewable energy.

 3:16
 And a key take away for our listeners, if you will.

 3:19
 So #1 interestingly though, we are talking about renewable energy.

 3:24
 I'm handing over to Julie to talk about biodiversity net gain.

 3:28
 But first, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and SSE just for a bit of context.

 3:33
 Yeah, of course, I'm Julie Bhatti.

 3:35
 I am the lead onshore environmental manager.

 3:39
 We cover onshore wind, solar and battery, and we cover the three phases from development, construction through into operations and asset management.

 3:51
 And all three phases, biodiversity net gain and biodiversity itself is really, really important to consider.

 3:58
 Starting off then we do have some projects in England.

 4:02
 So listeners will be aware that biodiversity net gain is now mandatory in England.

 4:09
 Biodiversity net gain leaves the natural environment in a measurably better state than it was prior to development.

 4:18
 And as I said, it became mandatory last February.

 4:20
 So that's the first year that we've had it.

 4:22
 And so it's kind of a look back as well as to how successful it's been so far.

 4:29
 I know it's quite early days, but developers have to essentially achieve at least 10% biodiversity net gain, although some local authorities are actually asking for more than that higher percentages.

 4:43
 And when I said measurably better state Defra have commissioned A BNG metric to be produce to be able to do that.

 4:56
 So ecologists will measure the biodiversity value of the existing habitat prior to development.

 5:04
 And then they will calculate the number of units that are needed to replace the habitat loss habitat units, pardon me, lost during development.

 5:14
 And to achieve that 10% biodiversity gain, which is a mandatory cut off, really to do that, you're going to really need a good partnership between your ecologist, your landscape architect, and your design team to get in really early.

 5:28
 Because designing that habitat enhancement and creation on site or off site, we'll get into that in a sec.

 5:37
 It's really going to need a good team.

 5:39
 Landscape architects are going to be absolutely critical to this as well.

 5:44
 So one of the best habitats to create or enhance on sites are mosaic, it actually comes out at a really high percent and it's because you've got that that different type of habitat, not just linear features or water features, etcetera.

 6:00
 That mosaic is really, really good.

 6:03
 And so yeah, it's that really good design team, that partnership team and get your ecologist in really early.

 6:13
 However, it has got a lot of challenges.

 6:16
 One of them is securing enough land.

 6:18
 So if you're having a constrained project space, and I'm thinking in particular of battery energy system best sites, often a lot of those are on brownfield as well where you've had a really, really nice habitat grow up with scrub and yeah, other ruderal habitat, ruderal coming in as well and just left to do its own thing.

 6:45
 So if you're removing that in a constrained space, you have to ensure that you can enhance or create that habitat again on that constrained space and get your 10% biodiversity net gain.

 7:01
 So that might require you to have a mixture of on site and off site as well.

 7:06
 So that is a challenge because once we're going into the off site space then we're talking about that 30 years monitoring responsibility as well with the landowner, who owns that land.

 7:19
 And so that's set out in a legal agreement.

 7:21
 So that is a really long time to be looking forward.

 7:24
 And then of course, if you're doing significant enhancement on site, that's also subject to the 30 year maintenance agreement as well set out in the legal agreement.

 7:38
 And a significant enhancement really depends on the scale of the development or what the existing habitat as well.

 7:46
 But it could actually include things like habitats of medium or higher distinctiveness in the metric areas of habitat creation or enhancement which are significant in area relative to the the development size as well.

 8:01
 And where you're improving habitat condition from poor or moderate to good.

 8:07
 So that's a significant enhancement.

 8:09
 So that would be subject to a 30 year legal agreement too.

 8:16
 So that in a nutshell is England.

 8:19
 In Scotland, we've got positive effects for biodiversity.

 8:24
 So that is not enshrined in legislation.

 8:27
 It's set out in policy 3 of NPF 4.

 8:30
 So it's good because it's ingrained in planning from the start.

 8:34
 Again, there is a big, there is a big challenge here though, because NatureScot are currently developing a metric, but they've been significantly delayed.

 8:45
 And if you think about NPF 4 having come in, in 2023, we're still waiting for a metric.

 8:53
 So that's kind of led to some companies just developing their own because they want to do the right thing and that includes my own company.

 9:01
 So we've committed to 10% biodiversity net gain with a 35 year monitoring plan as well on any major project consented from 2025 onwards.

 9:15
 Also some local planning authorities in Scotland are already asking for 10% biodiversity net gain without the availability of the metric from NatureScot.

 9:29
 So we don't actually know what that is going to look like yet.

 9:32
 So there are challenges ahead, but it's I guess getting biodiversity included at the very early start of a project that's key.

 9:44
There's a lot to unpack there already, isn't there?

 9:47
 OK.

 9:47
 And interestingly so with the lack of a standardised matrix within Scotland, is that something that is likely to become a thing in the next few years or is it?

 9:57
 It is, yes, yeah, NatureScot's developing it at the moment.

 10:01
 They've just been delayed that's all.

 10:03
 So CIEEM is actually working closely with them as well to to see where we can help from the CIEEM perspective to assist with with guidance etcetera.

 10:16
 So in terms of about Scotland and in England from a global perspective is biodiversity net gain a thing?

 10:25
 I think it is we're trying to incorporate it in European projects.

 10:33
 We don't know how that's going to land yet.

 10:37
 And I think Ireland are actually looking at more of a not a quantitative, but a qualitative method as well.

 10:44
 So the BNG is obviously very, it's it's very quantitative because you get a figure out at the end from the the Defra metric.

 10:54
 And although there is some professional judgement obviously used in that as well, Ireland are definitely wanting to go down the route of qualitative.

 11:05
 So there are differences throughout the UK and Ireland.

 11:08
 Interesting, which might come to a bit of confusion at some point, who knows?

 11:13
 OK.

 11:14
 And it's very interesting.

 11:15
 I've learned a lot already, especially given there's a development going right on right outside my house at the moment.

 11:20
 And I'm very intrigued about all the soil that's piled up and all that kind of stuff.

 11:24
 But it's good to hear about the, the need to, the 30 years you mentioned of, of managing the, the biodiversity situation, because that was obviously a key point to the my planning response to say to the, to the development behind me.

 11:39
 So I wanted it all to be above board and so on, which I'm sure it will be.

 11:44
 David, anything from you around biodiversity net gain?

 11:48
 Yes.

 11:49
 And it's echo everything that Julie said.

 11:52
 I think the as she mentioned, some of the complexity in this is around the, the implementation, especially the differences between the countries, but also the differences in technology on a solar, like Julie Locogen works on onshore wind and solar projects.

 12:12
 But we're as a consultant.

 12:14
 So we're more sort of engineering and consultants as well as the, the environmental bits we do for the planning and permitting process.

 12:22
 So a lot of what we're doing is trying to help projects get through those considerations.

 12:29
 And with solar PV projects, it's in some ways a lot easier to, to meet some of these biodiversity net gain targets because the land that you're replacing is, is basically a giant mono crop.

 12:43
 But for a, for a wind project it's much harder because your, your red line area that the planning consideration boundary is, is very large, but the thing you're actually doing is physically quite small in terms of, in terms of that.

 12:57
 So as we have a lot more wind projects in Scotland at the moment, although hopefully that will change over the next few years.

 13:05
 The, you know, the considerations about how we meet some of those conditions are, are quite technology specific.

 13:12
 And as Julie said, batteries again, where land is sort of is so limited.

 13:16
 You almost have the, the reverse in wind.

 13:19
 It's just such a large area to try and think about the biodiversity considerations that we might have to think of different approaches depending just on the the way that those technologies are laid out.

 13:31
 So this is definitely an area that needs further work and research somewhere that our environmental colleagues will have a lot of, a lot of space to, to, to influence over the next sort of few years.

 13:43
 Very interesting indeed.

 13:44
 One last question on biodiversity net gain.

 13:48
 So biodiversity net gain is applicable to any form of new renewable energy installation as of any other project, I guess unless it's on top of a roof or something like that.

 13:58
 Is that right?

 14:01
 It's got to be there's a threshold, there's a scale obviously.

 14:05
 So major developments and DIA developments certainly will will be subject to BNG requirements.

 14:13
 Whereas for smaller house householder type of development it wouldn't be.

 14:22
 So there is a scale.

 14:23
 Yeah, good to know.

 14:25
 And again, sort of a good example we've just been dealing with is we've been doing some work on a on a cable route for one of the projects which is treated as a separate project.

 14:35
 But because you can reinstate the land within two years, it is not subject to the same considerations because you've basically been able to show that the works that you've undertaken were either were limited.

 14:49
 So you're able to remediate fairly quickly.

 14:51
 Therefore, you don't have the same sort of biodiversity net gain considerations because basically you're saying we didn't change anything.

 14:58
 OK, interesting.

 14:59
 This is where you need a consultant like Locogen, to help you out through these situations.

 15:05
 Excellent.

 15:06
 OK, I'm going to move on to

 15:08
 Sub topic #2, if that's OK.

 15:11
 So for the second item to consider, we're sticking to the nature theme.

 15:15
 And over today, we introduced Peatland into the equation.

 15:20
 But as with Julie, if you're able to tell us a little bit more about Locogen.

 15:24
 and yourself if that's OK Indeed.

 15:27
 So as I said, Locogen

 15:28
 is a renewable energy consultancy and we have supported a number of of developers through trying to bring their projects through that that development life cycle.

 15:39
 So we work in a very similar sort of scale and type of projects to Julie, but but on a more kind of consultative support basis.

 15:48
 One of the things that we've been looking at quite closely is the impacts of of peat and in Scotland, where where Julie and I are based.

 15:54
 This is something that is that has been very key over the last few years, because with any of the projects that we are undertaking, the potential impact of developing that site and disturbing peat risks undoing the environmental benefits that we're doing by taking a renewable energy project forward.

 16:16
 Because peatland is, is an environment which if drained inadvertently or sort of, you know, affected, can cause much larger emissions of carbon dioxideand methane.

 16:33
 So we want to try and retain that.

 16:35
 It's also the case that that in a lot of the areas we're looking at, the existing peatland is actually quite poorly maintained.

 16:43
 There have been situations where that, that Peatland is in quite poor condition.

 16:49
 So this this provides both a consideration and an opportunity.

 16:54
 So the what we have been looking at is the first thing is, doing  a good survey, trying to understand what peatland is on your site because that lends itself quite heavily to the amendment of the design.

 17:10
 Everything we can do to avoid those, those deep peat sections  and it's for practical considerations as well.

 17:18
 It's not uncommon for deep peat not only to be an environmental issue, but also it's constructionally, it's a big issue people have, people have lost whole bits of plant.

 17:29
 It's a really deep peat.

 17:30
 So you really want to try and avoid wherever you can.

 17:34
 So you know, early engagement, early consideration of the site in terms of the the survey, probing that out through phase one and two studies to try and understand the extent of that peat is absolutely essential.

 17:48
 Then you can redesign the site to make sure that you've taken those considerations in and avoided those areas where it's going to have significant impact.

 17:58
 Then we can start to look at what needs to be done in the same way as the biodiversity net gain.

 18:03
 it's about thinking about how you, you make the best remediation of the site so that you're putting it back into a state that is better than it was already.

 18:12
 So we recently did a, a large solar project in Scotland.

 18:17
 In fact, one of the largest solar projects that's been done in Scotland where we had to do a, a huge amount of work to put in place a sort of peak management plan, which involved exactly that avoiding the biggest bit.

 18:32
 But also we are able to identify a fairly large swathe of sort of poor condition peatland which we were able to remediate.

 18:40
 We were able to go back in and ensure that peatland could work much more effectively.

 18:44
 And that that really helped to provide that basis for approval of the project.

 18:50
 Because it showed that the there you go.

 18:52
 We were actually contributing much more to the the peatland environment that we were removing by what's being done.

 18:58
 A lot of this comes down to the sort of the consideration of the habitat, the species and when the planning authorities are making the consideration of that, they are looking at everything.

 19:12
 So this is a solar project.

 19:13
 So one of the things we had to consider was that as it stands at the minute, all of the peatland underneath those modules, those frames is deemed as lost.

 19:25
 So we're sort of we're having to put back in place a lot of additional peatland, restoring that peatlands to make up for anything that's covered by the array.

 19:35
 But we were talking right at the very beginning about things that are interesting areas for development and research.

 19:42
 I think over the next few years, there's a huge opportunity to understand what impact is really being had on the peatland underneath PV modules.

 19:51
 Because, you know, just considering that as entirely lost is probably a little too narrow.

 19:56
 It's shaded, but it's not entirely dried out.

 20:00
 So I think there is, you know, something we're very keen to understand, not we have the answers at this stage, but something I think that, you know, organisations like ourselves and Julie's will be able to sort of, you know, bring other people in to understand.

 20:13
 Because I think if we can show that how the Petland is working across the entire site, hopefully that we'll be able to demonstrate that the benefits there are greater than what we're currently calculating.

 20:24
 Well, I think that all makes a huge amount of sense.

 20:27
 And we don't want to be losing plant equipment into bogs at any points, do we really?

 20:32
 But that negative impact of, there is a negative impact to any kind of project really isn't there.

 20:39
 But it is the way in which you you manage that.

 20:41
 And obviously the whole idea around renewable energy is to create positive impact and cleaner energy, but there are still negative elements to that that need to be managed properly.

 20:51
 I think there's so much noise around, so on X or in some media coverage around, you know, some clean energy isn't as clean as you say and that kind of thing, which obviously puts a bit of bad press on all.

 21:04
 But is that something you encounter as professionals that having to justify some of the the projects that you put in and that kind of thing?

 21:13
 Oh, all the time, all the time.

 21:16
 You don't need to go into the specifics, but definitely yes.

 21:23
 OK, interesting.

 21:25
 But clearly, as a whole, renewable energy projects are surely having a better impact for us than keeping with the fossil fuel energy that we've been relying upon for such a long time.

 21:38
 Oh, I would definitely think so.

 21:41
 And, and I think, you know, most of the people I know in this industry are here for not, not just because it's a, it's an interesting place to work, but because we believe that what we're doing is of a material benefit.

 21:53
 I don't think any of us would keep doing what we're doing if we suddenly found out that there were huge inexplicable impacts.

 21:59
 So, you know, I'm not that that goes for pretty much everybody I've ever worked with in this industry.

 22:04
 So I would like to think that that there's a moral compass that people we're working with is there as well as the the sort of, you know, it being a a good and interesting place to work and something that that that pays the way.

 22:16
 Absolutely.

 22:17
 And that means we've put all of those X comments and so on to bed now.

 22:20
 So that's good.

 22:20
 That's useful.

 22:22
 Drawing a line onto that one.

 22:23
 Excellent.

 22:24
 Julie, anything to add around peatlands?

 22:27
 Yeah, I'm going to come from the wind farm, onshore wind point of view, because once you've created the conditions that's going to allow the bog to restore itself.

 22:36
 So the restoration measures and then you let the bog to do its own work, You'll obviously need to monitor whether those measures have been successful as well.

 22:46
 And we've got several common techniques that we we use at the moment.

 22:51
 So they're they're including habitat surveys, using drones to look at vegetation communities and that kind of compares before and after.

 23:01
 We also use quadrats and dipwells as well, but that's quite labour intensive because you have to manually go out and monitor them monthly.

 23:09
 There are some dipwells that can send information back automatically but it's generally quite a labour intensive exercise.

 23:19
 Fixed point photography as well.

 23:21
 That's looking at comparisons before and after too, although there's a level of subjectivity associated with that, especially around the percentage estimates.

 23:32
 The vegetation types.

 23:34
 Then there's the multi spectral techniques which are really quite common technique within environmental monitoring.

 23:42
 So there is a challenge that there's no standardization at the minute of the method to use across the whole sector.

 23:48
 There's a mix of methods being used.

 23:51
 But recently we came across the bog breathing method, which is really, really interesting.

 23:59
 It's it a collaboration between NatureScot, University of Highlands and Islands, University of Nottingham and Forester Land Scotland.

 24:09
 So that research that they've done is using satellite, I'll have to take my time over this one.

 24:17
 Interferometric synthetic Aperture Radar, but it's INSAR for short.

 24:24
 And that maps the the movement to the the ground surface.

 24:28
 It was a technique that was developed by a spin out company from University of Nottingham called Teramotion Limited.

 24:37
 So what they've found and what we what we know is that there's various factors such as precipitation, water level, vegetation composition, and they all can affect the way that a bog moves or breathes.

 24:50
 And peatland surface motion is diagnostic of its condition as well.

 24:56
 So by measuring that motion over time, we can assess the condition of the peatland and the effectiveness of different restoration techniques on a large scale, which is really, really, it's really exciting.

 25:10
 This technique could also help identify areas that are at high risk of peat instability as well, including fire and erosion.

 25:18
 So it really can focus your efforts on where it's urgently needed and where urgent restoration is needed.

 25:28
 So this technique really the advantages of this technique, it offers large national scale approach to measuring peatland condition.

 25:38
 So it's a really interesting one to consider for the future for monitoring as we're, we're moving away from the more common, the more usual techniques.

 25:48
 I dare say it comes at a cost.

 25:50
 But I mean, this something that would monitor on a a national scale is really, really exciting.

 25:59
 Well, it certainly sounds like it.

 26:00
 Even the name sounds expensive.

 26:01
 So I imagine it comes with a cost, crikey, but it sounds like there's a lot of innovation going on in this area, which can only be a good thing to, to help understanding and learning across different sectors and so on.

 26:13
 Good to hear.

 26:14
 I might have to look up the definition of a bog.

 26:16
 And I must admit, when I left school many years ago, I never thought I'd be on a podcast talking about bogs.

 26:21
 But it's an interesting how where this where this job takes me, but it's always insightful.

 26:29
 And just one of the quick links that Julie sent me before this podcast to give me a bit of background reading into this suggested that International Bog Day is on 25th of July.

 26:40
 So there's a date for everybody's diary to learn a little bit more about bogs and how we should be protecting them and so on.

 26:46
 So if you don't have any kind of take away over than that, then that's that's a key take away for you.

 26:53
 Now moving on to our number 3 and it's back to Julie for we're going to go into the circular economy, I believe.

 27:03
 Yeah, that's right, we are.

 27:07
 I'm going to focus on blade recycling because for Scotland and Ireland, onshore wind decommissioning is going to be commencing in 2028 and that's across the whole sector, not just SSER.

 27:22
 We're potentially looking at more than 900 blades between 2028 and 2038.

 27:30
 That is a massive challenge, massive challenge.

 27:34
 And the key challenges that we're facing currently are that we've got restricted supply chain for downsizing and recycling of blades currently.

 27:44
 So that means that on site decommissioning is really reliant on manual operations, which has got a lot of health and safety implications associated with it as well.

 27:55
 These current processes are just not scalable and transportation off site of blades means that you have to cut them into 17 meter sections as well so that processing of those blades a significant technical gaps.

 28:11
 There's a lot of research and development required for downsizing, shredding, and component removal as well.

 28:18
 It's just unproven at scale currently.

 28:22
 And following on to recycling, that's also got a really restricted supply chain currently as well.

 28:28
 There are more capabilities outside the UK, but it is again unproven at scale.

 28:35
 So reprocessing, similarly, there's little or no pull for recycled glass fibre products because by the time you've milled it, it's going to make it really much more expensive.

 28:46
 And it's, yeah, it's really, really challenging.

 28:50
 So currently the only viable option is energy from waste.

 28:54
 And there's a massive issue with that as well because it's got poor public perception.

 28:59
 It's the dirtiest form of energy in the UK.

 29:03
 It's also got loss of value from the material as well.

 29:07
 So it's not essentially circular, energy from waste

 29:12
 plants are just not geared up to dealing with this yet.

 29:14
 They haven't got that.

 29:16
 It's the scalability is is too challenging for them currently and it's also carbon positive as well.

 29:24
 So it's it's not a great, it's not a great solution, though they have looked at things like blade repurposing.

 29:34
 Some have been used for EV canopies and for bridges as well, foot bridges, not roads, highways type bridges.

 29:44
 But again, the scalability there, it's not there.

 29:48
 So currently mechanical recycling is probably the the most promising as it's carbon negative.

 29:55
 You get the value from the materials which is retained and then that does promote circularity and there is a developing UK based supply chain for doing that as well.

 30:07
 So we've got Plaza wire and reblade as well.

 30:10
 But that kind of brings us back to those methods of decommissioning on site and downsizing and shredding.

 30:17
 It's just not scalable.

 30:19
 It's not scalable.

 30:20
 They're not optimized for the scale required currently.

 30:24
 And added to that as well, the environmental regulators don't currently have any waste exemptions for reuse of the components of blades too.

 30:35
 So it's it's a massive challenge and it's just over the horizon.

 30:40
 So we've got to start gearing up.

 30:44
 So a little bit of a call to action, a bit of a call for innovation really.

 30:47
 And  it's a really place, a good place, well placed thing to bring up because this, this podcast isn't necessarily designed to well, it's designed to make us all think.

 30:57
 And it's not just for sharing good practice about what's out there already.

 31:00
 It's also for sharing some of the challenges.

 31:02
 And hopefully that there's quite a few environmental professionals that are listening that are also thinking about the challenges and maybe one or two might have some solutions.

 31:09
 So it's a good place to kind of to talk about these issues.

 31:13
 Not everything has a solution currently.

 31:15
 So and I guess that's probably the case in a lot of industries.

 31:18
 So it's interesting thing to be talking about.

 31:22
 David, anything on so circular economy indeed, I think well, Julie covered some of the the issues with end of life very effectively.

 31:31
 I think where, where we are, where we're getting involved is, is sort of the step before that.

 31:39
 We've got a number of projects that we're looking at in terms of repowering both on wind and, and PV sites, which is a lot of the sites that were used for both PV systems.

 31:53
 You know the equipment is, some of the equipment has, has failed long before the sort of the extent, the full life of the project and needs to be replaced, which has some fairly key impacts in terms of how that site's going to be laid out.

 32:07
 Or on wind, really good windy sites were put up with smaller turbines that can now be installed.

 32:14
 So it's practical to repower those with much larger machines because you know, if you're going to have wind in the best places, you may as well sort of get the most effective plant there as possible to generate energy rather than having to stick them up in new locations.

 32:29
 So we've been working with a number of projects where we have been replacing existing plant with either secondhand plant or taking down existing and repowering with new ones.

 32:42
 So that those turbines can then go on to, to other sites to replace those.

 32:48
 Because with a degree of refurbishment and sort of, you know, tidying up the generators and gearboxes, you can actually get turbines to get quite a lot of additional life.

 32:59
 We actually last year completed one of the first multi turbine wind farm with recycled wind turbines in the UK.

 33:07
 So that was 8 machines that were brought over from a site that had actually been repowered in on the continent.

 33:14
 So again, that helped keep the costs of the project down, which made a quite a difference as the grid costs had escalated.

 33:21
 But there are challenges with this.

 33:23
 I was speaking to some colleagues on a project we were involved in, but some of my, some friends I know who were dealing with where they were repowering solar photovoltaic projects.

 33:35
 And they actually worked for a community group that were being offered these the plant there for free.

 33:41
 Because it's got to be, they've got to pay to have it recycle.

 33:43
 But they would much rather that equipment goes on, has a second life to it.

 33:50
 But one of the challenges they were finding was that unless that project had been, had been thought about before everything is even dismantled, it was very, very hard to be able to reassemble it to understand how the condition of those PV modules as they currently are, because they they degrade at different rates.

 34:09
 And when you want to rebuild it somewhere else, you want to be able to optimize that.

 34:13
 So they were having to put a lot of time and effort into understanding that they were offered a whole sort of basically a whole field of PV that had already been dismantled.

 34:22
 But it was going to cost them too much to understand the condition of that equipment.

 34:27
 Then it would have been the value associated with just buying new kit.

 34:32
 So when they were speaking to people about a similar opportunity, they were able to intervene earlier and say, this is absolutely fine.

 34:38
 We're really keen to engage with you, but we need to see it before it starts getting dismantled so that we can do our surveys and our checks while it's still operating to understand which bits are the bits that have the most value to us so we can get a viable system going forward.

 34:52
 So again, but because these things are just starting to occur, it's things that we're starting to see happening over that sort of, you know, it's going to become much bigger over the next few years.

 35:02
 Just learning these lessons in terms of what it takes to maximize the value so that we can reuse as many of these things as possible without having to send them to recycle.

 35:13
 Eventually they will have to, but it's about trying to to sort of extend the life as much as possible, something where where we're sort of very keen to try and develop wherever possible.

 35:24
 Well, a really interesting discussion to be had as we move towards a world of a huge amount more renewable energy involved and some of the challenges and opportunities and some of the ideas around at the moment that hopefully there'll be some innovations that will help us along the way.

 35:40
 But I'm conscious of time.

 35:41
 So we're going to move on to #4 if that's OK, so #4 of today's renewable energy environment top five is, grid reform.

 35:51
 We're going to hand over to David, right.

 35:54
 So for many, many years in the UK, one of the, sort of the key complaints of, of any renewable developer has been, well, in fact, anybody that's had to go and try and engage with, with the grid infrastructure has been the complexity in the time of getting grid connections in place.

 36:13
 So, and as we advance towards the ambitions that we have to decarbonize our grid and we are, we've been making great strides.

 36:22
 Last year, we were over 50% of the energy in the UK came from renewable sources, just 50.9%.

 36:30
 So it's a fantastic milestone, but you know that increased penetration of renewable energy onto the grid brings challenges and complexities with it.

 36:41
 And the way that we have been managing that up to date needed to change.

 36:47
 So with the change of government, they brought in they brought in a number of changes, including how that how those, they, they wanted a change in how the process was managed.

 36:59
 So we have, we are currently undergoing the sort of a reshuffle of how all those grid connections are being allocated.

 37:09
 And from the system we used to have, which was very much a sort of first come, first served approach to something where we will have a more strategic view about where renewable energy projects are needed.

 37:26
 So the amount of solar and wind and battery storage that's required in specific areas of the country and to prioritise grid connections to those projects that are, that are, that are most progressed and most able to connect, which from one perspective makes perfect sense.

 37:44
 We want to be able to get as much renewables onto the grid as quickly as possible in the areas that that need it most.

 37:52
 But this moves us away from a system we have had in the past, which is, you know, building it where people want to be able to construct projects because it's the easiest or most available land or  the sort of the cheapest place to develop.

 38:08
 So the next few years is going to be very interesting to see as these changes kick in and start to impact the way that we are developing projects in the across the UK.

 38:23
 Traditionally, because of things that have decisions that were made previously, especially to a planning policy, it's been a lot of solar PV in England and a lot of wind in Scotland.

 38:34
 The last couple of years have seen more solar projects moving into Scotland as people become more confident in the ability for a Scottish solar system to solar project to be able to develop returns and planning policy changes mean that we're going to see and these grid changes mean that we're going to see more wind in England.

 38:56
 But England is not like Scotland in many respects.

 39:00
 It's got got a lot more, more density, a lot more people.

 39:02
 So those projects are going to have to be a lot more targeted and an appropriate scale to fit within those landscape.

 39:12
 And a lot of work that's going to be coming forward both from the, from the environmental and also the visual perspective is about trying to to understand where those projects are going to be most effective, most viable.

 39:26
 So it is an interesting time to be thinking about where these projects are located and how that grid infrastructure changes are going to be steering projects into specific areas.

 39:40
 Yeah, certainly is. 

Is that an ongoing development of that connection strategy at the moment or is that a strategy that's now in place?

 39:46
 And it's just the implementation side?

 39:47
 It's going to be interesting to figure out how, what direction that goes in.

 39:50
 We are, we are currently in the first stage of that which is, which is which is called the queue management process.

 39:55
 So what what's happening is hopefully 2, but but at the moment what's happening is that process of reshuffling the queue.

 40:09
 So those projects that are already in significantly progressed will still proceed.

 40:13
 But anything that has a connection date beyond 2026.

 40:16
 Potentially that date could be fall forward or it could be pushed back depending on the the needs of the technology and the state of progression of a project.

 40:26
 And then there are certain deadlines in terms of what it what's hoped for by 2030 and what's hoped for by 2035.

 40:32
 So, so there'll be ongoing sort of considerations as that that process develops.

 40:38
 OK, Something very much to keep an eye on in the next few months and a couple of years or so.

 40:43
 OK.

 40:43
 And Julie, anything around grid reform you want to add?

 40:48
 Nothing much else, to be honest, because I think David's covered it very, very effectively.

 40:54
 Yes.

 40:55
 OK.

 40:56
 And he's, he's picked up the key points there.

 40:58
 Perfect.

 40:59
 Excellent.

 41:01
 So on to the final item.

 41:03
 So what's the biggest take away you want listeners to be considering on a topic of renewable energy?

 41:09
 Who wants to start on this one.

 41:12
 Do you want me to start off on planning?

 41:17
 Yeah.

 41:17
 And yeah, I guess one of the biggest takeaways is that our planning system in Scotland, MPF 4, it really does have biodiversity ingrained in the planning process from a really early stage.

 41:32
 It's very supportive of biodiversity.

 41:37
 We spoke earlier about positive effects for biodiversity enshrined in Policy 3 of MPF 4.

 41:45
 The expectations of that policy is for developments to strengthen connectivity as well for nature networks in Scotland and also for developers to use nature based solutions where possible.

 41:57
 And national and major developments and those requiring EIA will only be supported where it can be seen that we are going to be making enhancements and conservation of biodiversity and where those, where those plans are actually in place, it will include future management as well.

 42:22
 So that's really key.

 42:26
 The planning system is also supportive of renewable projects as well under Policy 11.

 42:33
 There is a caveat to that as well.

 42:35
 They're not supportive of onshore wind in national parks and national scenic areas for obvious reasons.

 42:43
 So, yeah, we've got a planning system that is is really supportive of biodiversity and of renewable energy, which really gives us hope because it is looking at the two crises, the dual crises of biodiversity and climate change.

 43:03
 So lots to unpack there as well, isn't there?

 43:05
 We're covering a lot of ground here.

 43:06
 David, do you want to come in out, come in on that?

 43:10
 Indeed, I think where we've made a lot of progress, especially recently has been a lot of the sort of the political will to make changes such as reversing restrictions on wind in, in England or de facto bans on, in, on wind in England.

 43:27
 And, and sort of, you know, changing, reforming the grid process to make those connections easier.

 43:33
 Both of which have been, you know, had quite significant impact in how that renewable developments are going to progress in England over the next few years.

 43:43
 Where I think we need to be a bit cautious is some of the other government statements that have come out recently, especially around slashing environmental red tape, where there is the risk that a lot of the good points that Julie was just mentioning potentially are, you know, could potentially be at risk.

 44:06
 So I think we have to be conscious or although some developers would be happy to be able to progress things forward, I think from the areas with the topics we've discussed here, there are good sensible reasons why these considerations need to be made because we want to be making sure these projects are of the best possible sort of net impact.

 44:30
 So we want to be, we want to be careful about how we sort of strip away some of these sort of environmental considerations.

 44:42
 So I'm optimistic about the changes that have been made, but a little nervous about some of the statements about things that could be changed.

 44:49
 So that just needs a bit of careful consideration and observation.

 44:55
 Do we have any particular feelings about how things might change over the next year or so, or is that very, very unpredictable?

 45:00
 We're keeping an eye on the Natural Environment Bill in Scotland and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill in England as well.

 45:09
 There's there's quite a bit of concern from CIEEM around the potential regression on Environmental Protection measures there.

 45:16
 So we're keeping an eye on that too.

 45:20
 OK, interesting.

 45:21
 Something for listeners to, to keep an eye on as well.

 45:23
 Maybe keep an eye on the CIEEM website and social media.

 45:27
 Can't see what's going on there.

 45:29
 Probably a similar kind of situation with the energy industry as well, because there's a huge amount of work they're doing around or huge by noise, certainly around renewable energy and so on.

 45:37
 So 2 useful places to have a look around that.

 45:42
 Now I think we've reached a conclusion of our environment top five there.

 45:46
 So thank you very, very much to our guests today.

 45:50
 And we've we have covered a lot of ground and I trust that listeners have found it very valuable indeed.

 45:57
 If you have any ideas of what could have been in the renewable energy top five, let us know in the comments.

 46:03
 We're always keen to keep the conversation going.

 46:06
 And finally, please check out any links and resources in the pod description to keep on learning.

 46:11
 So thank you again, and we'll see you on the next episode next month.

 46:17
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 46:23
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 46:28
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 46:31
 We look forward to the next episode next month.

 46:33
 See you then.