Optimal decision-making method for the ecological compensation of rural photovoltaic power generation adapted to rural revitalization and sustainable energy development

Vigorously promoting photovoltaic power generation meets the requirements of energy structure transition, which contributes to environmental protection. Abundant land resources in rural areas provide inherently convenient conditions for photovoltaic power generation. Rural photovoltaic projects provide a sustainable, clean, and low-carbon power supply for production and life, which increases positive ecological values, such as reducing carbon emissions by helping farmers wean off traditional fossil fuels, creating employment opportunities, etc. However, there are also some negative ecological values, such as the construction of photovoltaic power stations causing soil-water losses and construction occupations, which not only reduce the planting incomes of farmers, but also damage rural ecosystems. Therefore, ecological compensation for participators in the photovoltaic project, i.e., photovoltaic power station construction enterprises, farmers, and village collectives, is required to balance the participants' benefits and losses. However traditional compensation methods cannot decide the accurate compensation standards for participators. Hence, referring to the ecosystem service values in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an ecosystem service assessment index system (ESAIS) that includes economic, social, and environmental aspects is proposed in this paper. Based on the proposed ESAIS, the calculation modes for economic values (e.g., electric energy, construction incomes, etc.), social security values, and environment values (e.g., energy conservation and emission reduction, soil-water losses, etc.) are proposed based on market valuation methods, shadow project approaches, opportunity cost methods, etc., can be employed to quantitatively analyze the ecological values of participators. On this basis, the relationship between benefits and expenditures among the participators is established. Then an optimal decision-making model for ecological compensation is introduced to minimize the proportion of low-income farmers with the constraints of the balance of payments, which contributes to achieving win-win cooperation among the participators and sustainable energy development. Based on actual data from rural photovoltaic projects in China, case studies are carried out to verify the proposed ecological compensation model. Under the premise of ensuring reasonable profitability for all participators, the proposed model maximizes the contributions of beneficiaries in the ecological compensation schemes, which contributes to preventing farmers from returning to low income. Compared to traditional compensation methods that compensate farmers based on production inputs, direct losses, or waste disposal fees, the proposed method not only guarantees all participators have positive ecological values and environmental values after compensation, but also increases all farmers’ income levels by maximizing their incomes. Hence, the proposed model contributes to the realization of rural revitalization strategy and sustainable development, which has directive significance for economic advancement in underdeveloped regions worldwide.