An evaluation of solar powered irrigation as carbon offset projects

Sammanfattning: The thesis is intended for climate change policy makers and actors on the compliance and voluntary carbon markets. Carbon offsets have been developed as one tool to incentivise investments by developed nations in climate change mitigation activities in developing countries. The carbon offsets can be used towards the countries’ own mitigation targets but are also meant to benefit developing countries by providing a pathway to clean development.Photovoltaic water pumping (PVWP) technology is a solution to use PV for irrigation, which can be used to restore degraded grasslands and help farmers adapt to climate change. Restoration of degraded grasslands increases the production of grass and will therefore increase the amount of carbon in the soil, a process that may mitigate climate change. However, poor farmers often have limited access to irrigation technology and this thesis assesses how carbon offsets may bring revenues to increase adaption of PVWP technology in remote areas of the Chinese grasslands.PV modules can be used to mitigate climate change in different ways; the most common is to produce electricity to replace fossil fuel power capacity. The novelty of this thesis is that it assesses the alternative mitigation possibilities for the PVWP project proposed here. Further, consideration of water constraints that limit the applicability of the technology and a framework to assess the trade-offs between potential downstream water impacts and environmental co-benefits of the project add to the novelty of this thesis. Policy barriers for the project will also be considered. Used to restore severely degraded grasslands, PVWP projects show high carbon sequestration potential and successfully compete with grid electricity as carbon offset projects. A case is analysed and it shows that the carbon market could play a role in increasing the feasibility of PVWP projects. However, water issues make project implementation very site-specific and some indicators to determine feasibility is proposed to be blue water availability, evaporation recycling ratio and water productivity. Water use must also be looked at with respect to climate, food and energy security, calling for a nexus approach to evaluate the project suitability. In May 2016, grassland management projects are excluded from the Clean Development Mechanism to the Kyoto Protocol, and this limits project implementation to the voluntary markets.