Journal
ENERGY POLICY
Volume 98, Issue -, Pages 49-61Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.08.010
Keywords
Wind energy potential; Social acceptance; Participatory modeling; Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE); Wind energy supply curves
Funding
- Austrian Climate Research Program (Project TransWind) [KR12AC5K01257]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Techno-economic assessments confirm the potential of wind energy to contribute to a low carbon bioeconomy. The increasing diffusion of wind energy, however, has turned wind energy acceptance into a significant barrier with respect to the deployment of wind turbines. This article assesses whether, and at what cost, Austrian renewable energy targets can be met under different expansion scenarios considering the socio-political and market acceptance of wind energy. Land-use scenarios have been defined in a participatory modeling approach with stakeholders from various interest groups. We calculated the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for all of the potential wind turbine sites, which we used to generate wind energy supply curves. The results show that wind energy production could be expanded to 20% of the final end energy demand in three out of four scenarios. However, more restrictive criteria increase LCOE by up to 20%. In contrast to common views that see local opposition against wind projects as the main barrier for wind power expansion, our participatory modeling approach indicates that even on the level of key stakeholders, the future possible contribution of wind energy to Austrian renewable energy targets reaches from almost no further expansion to very high shares of wind energy. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available