scholarly journals Wealth of Wind and Visitors: Tourist Industry Attitudes towards Wind Energy Development in Iceland

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 693
Author(s):  
Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir ◽  
Margrét Wendt ◽  
Edita Tverijonaite
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Land Use Conflicts ◽  
Wind Energy Development

The interest in harnessing wind energy keeps increasing globally. Iceland is considering building its first wind farms, but its landscape and nature are not only a resource for renewable energy production; they are also the main attraction for tourists. As wind turbines affect how the landscape is perceived and experienced, it is foreseeable that the construction of wind farms in Iceland will create land use conflicts between the energy sector and the tourism industry. This study sheds light on the impacts of wind farms on nature-based tourism as perceived by the tourism industry. Based on 47 semi-structured interviews with tourism service providers, it revealed that the impacts were perceived as mostly negative, since wind farms decrease the quality of the natural landscape. Furthermore, the study identified that the tourism industry considered the following as key factors for selecting suitable wind farm sites: the visibility of wind turbines, the number of tourists and tourist attractions in the area, the area’s degree of naturalness and the local need for energy. The research highlights the importance of analysing the various stakeholders’ opinions with the aim of mitigating land use conflicts and socioeconomic issues related to wind energy development.

scholarly journals Using participatory GIS to examine social perception towards proposed wind energy landscapes

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Lombard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Participatory Gis ◽  
The Impact

Thirteen onshore wind farm projects, totalling approximately 700 wind turbines, are proposed for the West Coast Region (WCR) of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. Wind energy exploitation possesses the ability to transform what can be classified as natural landscapes into landscapes of power, making the type of landscape on which wind turbines are deployed a prominent factor in its social acceptance or rejection. This paper examines the landscape aesthetics and land use interference of proposed wind farms in the WCR of South Africa through determining if social acceptance or rejection of proposed wind farms is dependent on the residents and visitors scenic and land use valuation of the natural landscape. The results indicate that the visual intrusion of wind turbines is the impact that respondents are least concerned with contrasting with the findings of international literature and further reasons for this anomaly are interrogated against the background of South Africa’s dire electricity needs. The paper concludes that visual impact assessments alone are not sufficient for evaluating landscapes and this paper recommends that participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) be used in addition to existing wind energy landscape assessments.

Wind Energy and Adverse Visual-Impact Litigation: A Balance of Global and Local Interests?

Climate Law ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 336-352
Author(s):  
Natalie Jones
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Visual Amenity ◽  
Visual Impact ◽  
Wind Energy Development ◽  
Slow Wind ◽  
Global And Local

Wind energy is one of the world’s fastest growing forms of energy. It has many advantages over traditional forms of energy. However, visual impact is a disadvantage. Although planning applications for wind-farm developments are on the rise worldwide, the visual impact of potential developments repeatedly provokes opposition to new wind-farm projects. Litigation aimed at enjoining the construction of wind-energy facilities can slow wind-energy development and increase its cost. This article takes a comparative approach to such visual-impact litigation, looking at cases from Australia, New Zealand, and England in order to understand why planning cases are much more likely to succeed in some jurisdictions than others. I argue that in some jurisdictions decision-makers and courts are impliedly prioritizing the global, national, and local interests in favour of wind-farm development over the national and local interests in favour of landscape and visual-amenity protection.

Detection and Evaluation of Amplitude Modulation From a Wind Energy Development, Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 (6) ◽  
pp. 1042-1052
Author(s):  
Simon Jennings ◽  
John Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Amplitude Modulation ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Quantitative Measure ◽  
Reference Method ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Aerodynamic Noise ◽  
Subjective Report ◽  
Wind Energy Development ◽  
Subjective Reports

Amplitude modulation (AM) is a characteristic of wind turbine noise that has only been recognised as an issue in recent years. It is a characteristic related to aerodynamic noise and descriptions of it include "swishing", "whooshing" or less frequently a "thumping" sound. Due to increased awareness among exposed communities AM presents a potentially serious obstacle to future wind farm developments. This work reports on the application of a recently developed calculation method for AM in a practical setting. Correlations will be drawn with subjective reports of AM by nearby residents keeping a noise diary. The suitability of the method and its ability to quantitatively confirm subjective reports of AM will be assessed. A study is presented here whereby subjectively recorded occurrences of AM by residents living near a wind energy development in Ireland are correlated to calculated levels over a twenty day period. In order to detect and calculate AM a method published by the Amplitude Modulation Working Group of the Institute of Acoustics, referred to as the Reference Method, is applied. A subjective assessment of the sound recordings to confirm the presence of AM is discussed, including estimating the expected frequency range that AM occurs. The results of the Reference Method calculation are presented for periods with and without a subjective report of AM by the residents. Consideration is given to the criteria and thresholds for valid AM ratings within the Reference Method especially where intermittent periods of AM are identified. The Reference Method is shown to be highly suitable as a quantitative measure of AM which correlates well with subjective reports. Caution must be taken when using the method as valid periods of AM may be overlooked due to the rigorous detection thresholds set by the method.

scholarly journals Managing Wind Power Generation via Indexed Semi-Markov Model and Copula

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 4246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guglielmo D’Amico ◽  
Giovanni Masala ◽  
Filippo Petroni ◽  
Robert Adam Sobolewski
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Power Systems ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
Output Power ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Spatial Dependencies

Because of the stochastic nature of wind turbines, the output power management of wind power generation (WPG) is a fundamental challenge for the integration of wind energy systems into either power systems or microgrids (i.e., isolated systems consisting of local wind energy systems only) in operation and planning studies. In general, a wind energy system can refer to both one wind farm consisting of a number of wind turbines and a given number of wind farms sited at the area in question. In power systems (microgrid) planning, a WPG should be quantified for the determination of the expected power flows and the analysis of the adequacy of power generation. Concerning this operation, the WPG should be incorporated into an optimal operation decision process, as well as unit commitment and economic dispatch studies. In both cases, the probabilistic investigation of WPG leads to a multivariate uncertainty analysis problem involving correlated random variables (the output power of either wind turbines that constitute wind farm or wind farms sited at the area in question) that follow different distributions. This paper advances a multivariate model of WPG for a wind farm that relies on indexed semi-Markov chains (ISMC) to represent the output power of each wind energy system in question and a copula function to reproduce the spatial dependencies of the energy systems’ output power. The ISMC model can reproduce long-term memory effects in the temporal dependence of turbine power and thus understand, as distinct cases, the plethora of Markovian models. Using copula theory, we incorporate non-linear spatial dependencies into the model that go beyond linear correlations. Some copula functions that are frequently used in applications are taken into consideration in the paper; i.e., Gumbel copula, Gaussian copula, and the t-Student copula with different degrees of freedom. As a case study, we analyze a real dataset of the output powers of six wind turbines that constitute a wind farm situated in Poland. This dataset is compared with the synthetic data generated by the model thorough the calculation of three adequacy indices commonly used at the first hierarchical level of power system reliability studies; i.e., loss of load probability (LOLP), loss of load hours (LOLH) and loss of load expectation (LOLE). The results will be compared with those obtained using other models that are well known in the econometric field; i.e., vector autoregressive models (VAR).

scholarly journals Wind Energy Development in India and a Methodology for Evaluating Performance of Wind Farm Clusters

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjeev H. Kulkarni ◽  
Tumkur Ramakrishnarao Anil ◽  
Rajakumar Dyamenally Gowdar
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Wind Energy Development ◽  
Hierarchy Process

With maturity of advanced technologies and urgent requirement for maintaining a healthy environment with reasonable price, India is moving towards a trend of generating electricity from renewable resources. Wind energy production, with its relatively safer and positive environmental characteristics, has evolved from a marginal activity into a multibillion dollar industry today. Wind energy power plants, also known as wind farms, comprise multiple wind turbines. Though there are several wind-mill clusters producing energy in different geographical locations across the world, evaluating their performance is a complex task and is an important focus for stakeholders. In this work an attempt is made to estimate the performance of wind clusters employing a multicriteria approach. Multiple factors that affect wind farm operations are analyzed by taking experts opinions, and a performance ranking of the wind farms is generated. The weights of the selection criteria are determined by pairwise comparison matrices of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed methodology evaluates wind farm performance based on technical, economic, environmental, and sociological indicators. Both qualitative and quantitative parameters were considered. Empirical data were collected through questionnaire from the selected wind farms of Belagavi district in the Indian State of Karnataka. This proposed methodology is a useful tool for cluster analysis.

scholarly journals ‘Knowledge is power’ – making sense of wind farm data

2014 ◽  
pp. 123-127
Author(s):  
Frank O’Connor
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Electricity Demand ◽  
Making Sense

The Irish wind energy sector is booming. In 2012, Irish wind farms supplied enough energy to provide about 15% of Ireland’s electricity demand and power 1.12 million households. In March 2014, The Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA), an organisation committed to the promotion of wind energy in Ireland, highlighted a planned €7 billion investment in the sector, with a confirmed project pipeline of over 180 new wind schemes. According to a recent TCD/ESRI report, this will bring the total number of jobs in the sector from 3,400 at present to over 8,400 and see a doubling of production of clean, indigenous, renewable energy. The modern wind turbines, which will be rolled out as part of these new schemes are a far cry from the turbines installed over four decades ago at the first commercial wind farm, constructed in 1980 on Crotched Mountain, New Hampshire, USA. A modern turbine such as ...

scholarly journals Enabling Renewable Energy While Protecting Wildlife: An Ecological Risk-Based Approach to Wind Energy Development Using Ecosystem-Based Management Values

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9352
Author(s):  
Andrea E. Copping ◽  
Alicia M. Gorton ◽  
Roel May ◽  
Finlay Bennet ◽  
Elise DeGeorge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Ecological Risk ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Marine Animals ◽  
Ecosystem Based Management ◽  
Wind Energy Development

Acceptance of wind energy development is challenged by stakeholders’ concerns about potential effects on the environment, specifically on wildlife, such as birds, bats, and (for offshore wind) marine animals, and the habitats that support them. Communities near wind energy developments are also concerned with social and economic impacts, as well as impacts on aesthetics, historical sites, and recreation and tourism. Lack of a systematic, widely accepted, and balanced approach for measuring the potential damage to wildlife, habitats, and communities continues to leave wind developers, regulators, and other stakeholders in an uncertain position. This paper explores ecological risk-based management (RBM) in wind energy development for land-based and offshore wind installations. This paper provides a framework for the adaptation of ecosystem-based management to wind energy development and examines that framework through a series of case studies and best management practices for applying risk-based principles to wind energy. Ten case studies indicate that wind farm monitoring is often driven by regulatory requirements that may not be underpinned by scientific questions. While each case applies principles of adaptive management, there is room for improvement in applying scientific principles to the data collection and analysis. Challenges and constraints for wind farm development to meet RBM framework criteria include collecting sufficient baseline and monitoring data year-round, engaging stakeholder facilitators, and bringing together large and diverse scientific teams. The RBM framework approach may provide insights for improved siting and consenting/permitting processes for regulators and their advisors, particularly in those nations where wind energy is still in the early development stages on land or at sea.

Guidelines for Wind Power and Wildlife in Washington State, USA

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Ling ◽  
Andy Linehan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
Wind Power ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Washington State ◽  
The State ◽  
Mitigation Option ◽  
Energy Projects ◽  
Wind Energy Development

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) adopted wind power guidelines in 2002 to promote standardisation of the agency's responses to proposed wind energy projects in Washington State. While the purpose of the guidelines was to create consistency from the agency, some of the recommendations seemed overly stringent and unjustified to the wind industry. Recognising the implications of the guidelines on wind energy development in the State, the Renewable Northwest Project (RNP), along with industry members and their permitting consultants, successfully engaged the agency in a discussion to reach fair and consistent wind power guidelines. The account and methods of negotiation are detailed as an example for abating possible adverse avian and habitat environmental impact of wind farms. The three key areas of negotiation were: pre-permit environmental studies, wildlife and habitat mitigation, and an alternative fee-based mitigation option.

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