Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac7603
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) Historic drivers of onshore wind power siting and inevitable future trade-offs
Author Weinand, J.M.; Naber, E.; McKenna, R.; Lehmann, P.; Kotzur, L.; Stolten, D.
Source Titel Environmental Research Letters
Year 2022
Department OEKON
Volume 17
Issue 7
Page From art. 074018
Language englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Supplements Supplement 1
Keywords disamenities; regional equality; cost effectiveness; European turbine stock; multi-criteria; future expansion; 2050 scenarios
Abstract The required acceleration of onshore wind deployment requires the consideration of both economic and social criteria. With a spatially explicit analysis of the validated European turbine stock, we show that historical siting focused on cost-effectiveness of turbines and minimization of local disamenities, resulting in substantial regional inequalities. A multi-criteria turbine allocation approach demonstrates in 180 different scenarios that strong trade-offs have to be made in the future expansion by 2050. The sites of additional onshore wind turbines can be associated with up to 43% lower costs on average, up to 42% higher regional equality, or up to 93% less affected population than at existing turbine locations. Depending on the capacity generation target, repowering decisions and spatial scale for siting, the mean costs increase by at least 18% if the affected population is minimized – even more so if regional equality is maximized. Meaningful regulations that compensate the affected regions for neglecting one of the criteria are urgently needed.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=26217
Weinand, J.M., Naber, E., McKenna, R., Lehmann, P., Kotzur, L., Stolten, D. (2022):
Historic drivers of onshore wind power siting and inevitable future trade-offs
Environ. Res. Lett. 17 (7), art. 074018 10.1088/1748-9326/ac7603