These sessions provide an opportunity for members to share their research (and other) interests with fellow early career researchers. Webinars will include up to two talks, followed by a Q&A from attendees. There will also be 15 minutes of informal networking built into each session, to allow forum members to follow up any questions or comments they might have.

If you are interested in presenting your research in one of these sessions, please contact talent@ukri.org.

Presenters:

Dr Saikat Dutta (Research Fellow in Railway Mechatronics Systems, Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education, University of Birmingham). Saikat’s research expertise is in mechatronics, vibration analysis and dynamic modelling, focusing on the railway and automotive systems.

Dr Rebecca Windemer (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Cardiff University). Dr Rebecca Windemer is an environmental planner and geographer, whose research focuses on the regulation of renewable energy infrastructure. Her research currently focuses on the regulation of onshore wind and solar farms, particularly the use of temporary planning consents.

Talk title: Planning for the future of onshore renewables.

Planning permission for onshore wind and solar farms in the UK is usually ‘temporary’, for a period of 25 years. Wind farms are already starting to reach the end of their planning consent. There is therefore a need to understand how decisions are made regarding decommissioning, extending the planning consent or repowering sites with new, more efficient, infrastructure. In this presentation Rebecca will discuss the key findings of a three year research project exploring experiences of end-of-life decision making for wind and solar farms in the UK. Case studies will be drawn upon to explain challenges in decision making, the experiences of communities living closest to existing wind farms and key policy challenges.

ECR Forum research webinar series