۱- Introduction

۲- Research methods

۳- Evaluation of the wind atlas

۴- Results: a socio-technical analysis of european onshore wind energy

۵- Conclusion and further research

References

Abstract

The continuous development of onshore wind farms is an important feature of the European transition towards an energy system powered by distributed renewables and low-carbon resources. This study assesses and simulates potential for future onshore wind turbine installations throughout Europe. The study depicts, via maps, all the national and regional socio-technical restrictions and regulations for wind project development using spatial analysis conducted through GIS. The inputs for the analyses were based on an original dataset compiled from satellites and public databases relating to electricity, planning, and other dimensions. Taking into consideration socio-technical constraints, which restricts 54% of the combined land area in Europe, the study reveals a nameplate capacity of 52.5 TW of untapped onshore wind power potential in Europe – equivalent to 1 MW per 16 European citizens – a supply that would be sufficient to cover the global all-sector energy demand from now through to 2050. The study offers a more rigorous, multi-dimensional, and granular atlas of onshore wind energy development that can assist with future energy policy, research, and planning.

Introduction

The European Commission’s energy strategy for 2050 explicitly calls for a substantive increase in installed renewable energy capacity and a concomitant reduction of emission of greenhouse gasses (Carvalho, 2012), with wind energy being recognized in various studies to be a critical enabler for achieving 100% national renewable energy penetration (Marvel et al., 2013; Arnqvist, 2015; Windeurope, 2018). Such conclusions are often supported on the grounds that wind energy has immense technical potential to deliver useful electricity and energy services. As Archer and Jacobson (2005) projected, capturing 20% of global technical potential of wind power would satisfy the entire world’s need for energy, and using more advanced wind turbine technologies in the pipeline would (Marvel et al., 2013) yield a potential global nameplate capacity of 400,000 GW (Arnqvist, 2015). In Europe, a total of 169 GW of wind power nameplate capacity (31.3% of the world’s total capacity) was installed at the end of 2017 (Windeurope, 2018), with the majority of the nameplate capacity located onshore in Western European countries. This represents nearly one-third of global wind power generation nameplate capacity. Fig. 1 illustrates that despite all of the promise of offshore wind, onshore wind power installations still dominate the market, and continue to grow in significant numbers annually in Europe. Despite progressive growth, the ambitious goals from the European Energy Commission can only be reached by installing more wind power nameplate capacity (both onshore and offshore) and improving the efficacy of existing wind power systems.