Wind Farms in India and Protecting Peat in Indonesia

Posted by Accommodation on 19th October 2021 -

As an Ecologi partner each month we’ll be supporting two projects which directly impact atmospheric CO2 levels.

This month we are supporting small scale onshore wind in India and protecting lowland peat forest in Indonesia.

You can read more about each project below or visit our Ecologi profile here to find out more.

Small scale onshore wind in India

India has one of the fastest growing energy demands in the world, yet 74% of its electricity still comes from fossil fuels. One way in which to accelerate the transition towards clean energy is to expand its wind power sector.

Wind power comes from wind turbines, which turn the energy of wind into electrical energy. Most turbines have two or three blades which are designed to spin when the wind hits them at a certain angle. The blades then spin a rotor which powers a generator to produce electricity. Onshore wind turbines provide some of the cheapest forms of renewable energy we have.

The Suzlon 9.40 MW Wind Power Project is located in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India and is designed to generate electricity through wind energy to displace fossil fuel-generated electricity. The project is made up of four 2.1 MW wind turbines.

The produced electricity is exported to the regional NEWNE grid, which provides electricity to most of India. Emissions reductions of around 14,000 tonnes per year occur as a result of this project activity, because the renewable energy from the wind turbines displaces fossil fuel energy in the grid.

The project also contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through providing access to affordable clean energy (SDG 7), providing good employment to local people (SDG 8), and of course, emissions reductions to contribute to climate action (SDG 13).

Protecting lowland peat forest in Indonesia

Peatlands are a type of wetland and are among the most valuable ecosystems on Earth. The term ‘peatland’ refers to the peat soil and the wetland habitat growing on its surface. Peat is a swampy, water-logged soil that is made through the slow accumulation of dead trees, plants, and other organic material which can only partially decompose due to the volume of water these habitats contain.

These unique habitats store massive amounts of carbon, with stocks below ground amounting to up to 20 times the amount stored in trees and vegetation. Despite covering just 3% of the Earth’s surface, they store more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined. When peatlands are cleared, drained or burned, the carbon stored within them is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Indonesia contains some 36% of the world’s tropical peatlands, however they are increasingly being destroyed to make room for plantation crops including oil palm and acacia. From 2000 to 2015, the country lost an average of 498,000 hectares of forest each year.

The Rimba Raya REDD+ project protects 64,500 hectares of lowland peat swamp forest from conversion to oil palm plantations. The project area is in Central Kalimantan province, on the Southern coast of Borneo. This area is incredibly rich in biodiversity, including being home to the endangered Bornean orangutan.

Provincial government in the area had previously slated the project area for conversion into four palm oil estates, and the project activity prevents this from taking place – ensuring the continued survival of the natural habitat for over 120 threatened and endangered species, and keeping the carbon stored in the trees and peatland locked away.

The project is the largest in the world to protect High Conservation Value (HCV) tropical lowland peat swamp, making enormous emissions reductions and protecting many species on the IUCN Red List. It is estimated to reduce over 3.5 million tonnes of emissions per year through preventing the clearing of the peatland.

Rimba Raya is also the first project supported by Ecologi to be certified by Verra’s Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SDVista). This standard carefully scrutinises projects for their impacts toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The project’s SDVista Validation Reports (which can be found here) note substantial contributions to all 17 of the SDGs.

These impacts come through various aspects of the project activity: from distributing solar lanterns to 1,794 local households, to providing sustainability education to 346 local students, to the building of two fire lookout towers on the project site to ensure rapid response to potential fire risks within the project boundary.