- Report
(EN) Green electricity corridors in Europe. Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM): Status, roadblocks and ways forward
With
proper management, the land under powerlines can enable and support
greater biodiversity. Such management, known as Integrated Vegetation
Management (IVM), can be used to create green corridors which are a
type of green infrastructure. These are strategically-planned
networks of natural and semi-natural areas designed and managed to
improve biodiversity, protect vulnerable species and provide a wide
range of ecosystem services. IVM can benefit multiple habitats and
species by increasing plant diversity, which acts as important
habitat for multiple bird, pollinator and small mammal species (among
others). Although many Transmission System Operators (TSOs) have some
form of IVM policy in place, there is still great potential to
develop land in power line corridors for the benefit of nature. To
understand why TSOs can find it difficult to implement IVM, the
consultancy Ecofirst and the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI)
conducted a benchmarking exercise to understand what the common
roadblocks are, what tools would be needed to overcome them and to
propose some ways in which IVM policies can be better developed and
implemented. The exercise found that the main roadblocks were human
rather than technical. Building sustainable partnerships with
landowners, convincing those within the TSO itself as well as making
a business case for IVM were all recurrent challenges. From the
research and further discussions, four main future priorities became
clear: - Build mapping tools - Test and share new governance
approaches - Prove cost efficiency through costs benefit analysis -
Expand the scientific knowledge base. Both RGI and Ecofirst are
committed to expanding the positive impact of IVM and are looking to
assist in the development of further projects across Europe. Our hope
is to test new methods and technologies and help to spread knowledge
and the lessons learnt to TSOs, NGOs and other stakeholders.