资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Quantifying Wind Power Rejection

The calculations are based on evaluations of the beauty of German landscapes according to standardized criteria by thousands of respondents. "It was confirmed for Great Britain that rejection of wind energy expansion is much higher in municipalities located in beautiful sceneries than in less beautiful regions," says Max Kleinebrahm, IIP. "When transferring this finding to Germany and replacing the qualitative factor of rejection by a development scenario without wind power, the additional costs expected when using no wind turbines can be projected precisely." As a reference, the researchers used another techno-economically optimized scenario for the transformation of the energy system with the use of local wind power.

The comparison was made for 11,131 municipalities in Germany and projected until 2050. It was found that stopping the expansion of wind energy use in the most beautiful landscapes might increase power generation costs in some municipalities by up to 7 cents per kilowatt hour and CO₂ emissions might rise by up to 200 g per kilowatt hour. "Instead of wind energy, it would then be necessary to expand use of other types of renewable energy sources, such as solar energy or bioenergy," says Jann Michael Weinand (IIP), one of the main authors of the study. "Solar energy, however, is associated with higher system integration costs causing most of the surcharge." Only in very few cases can wind energy for local electricity production be replaced completely. In many cases, power imports would be needed, which would result in comparably high CO₂ emissions.

Participation for a Solution

The researchers cannot offer a quick solution for the conflict between nature protection and climate-friendly power production with wind turbines. Still, they would like their study to contribute to a reconciliation. "We provide the necessary data so that those responsible on the ground can make knowledge-based decisions," Fichtner says. Further analyses are planned to obtain in-depth understanding of the interrelations between local rejection of wind power, landscape beauty, and impacts on the energy system. (mhe)

Story Source:

Materials provided by Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Jann M. Weinand, Russell McKenna, Max Kleinebrahm, Fabian Scheller, Wolf Fichtner. The impact of public acceptance on cost efficiency and environmental sustainability in decentralized energy systems. Patterns, 2021; 2 (7): 100301 DOI: 10.1016/j.patter.2021.100301