Social acceptance of offshore wind energy development in South Korea: Results from a choice experiment survey

According to the South Korean Government, new offshore wind power generators with a capacity of 12-13 GW will be installed by 2030. This article attempts to investigate the social acceptance of an offshore wind energy development project by evaluating its environmental costs. For this purpose, 1,000 households throughout the country were randomly selected, and a choice experiment (CE) survey was undertaken with them in August 2018. The 4 attributes considered here are distance from the land, offshore wind farm size, offshore wind turbine height, and decrease in marine life. An increase in the yearly income tax is also considered as an attribute. The results of applying the CE approach reveal that people place significant value on reducing the environmental impacts of the offshore wind energy development project. If the results are added to the cost-benefit analysis of the proposed offshore wind energy development project, the benefits of the project are not likely to exceed the costs of the project. The implementation of the project should be thoroughly re-considered.