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The Cost of Undisturbed Landscapes

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  • Sebastian Wehrle
  • Johannes Schmidt
  • Christian Mikovits

Abstract

By 2030 Austria aims to meet 100% of its electricity demand from domestic renewable sources, with most of the additional generation coming from wind and solar energy. Apart from the benefit of reducing CO2 emissions and, potentially, system cost, wind power is associated with negative impacts at the local level, such as interference with landscape aesthetics. Some of these impacts might be avoided by using alternative renewable energy technologies. Thus, we quantify the opportunity cost of wind power versus its best feasible alternative solar photovoltaics, using the power system model medea. Our findings suggest that the cost of undisturbed landscapes is considerable, particularly when solar PV is mainly realized on roof-tops. Under a wide range of assumptions, the opportunity cost of wind power is high enough to allow for significant compensation of the ones affected by local, negative wind turbine externalities.

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  • Sebastian Wehrle & Johannes Schmidt & Christian Mikovits, 2020. "The Cost of Undisturbed Landscapes," Papers 2006.08009, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2006.08009
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    2. Lehmann, Paul & Tafarte, Philip, 2024. "Exclusion zones for renewable energy deployment: One man’s blessing, another man’s curse," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Lehmann, Paul & Tafarte, Philip, 2023. "The opportunity costs of environmental exclusion zones for renewable energy deployment," UFZ Discussion Papers 2/2023, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    4. Russell McKenna & Stefan Pfenninger & Heidi Heinrichs & Johannes Schmidt & Iain Staffell & Katharina Gruber & Andrea N. Hahmann & Malte Jansen & Michael Klingler & Natascha Landwehr & Xiaoli Guo Lars', 2021. "Reviewing methods and assumptions for high-resolution large-scale onshore wind energy potential assessments," Papers 2103.09781, arXiv.org.
    5. Grimsrud, Kristine & Hagem, Cathrine & Lind, Arne & Lindhjem, Henrik, 2021. "Efficient spatial distribution of wind power plants given environmental externalities due to turbines and grids," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

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    JEL classification:

    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

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