EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Wind power externalities: A meta-analysis

Matteo Mattmann, Ivana Logar and Roy Brouwer (rbrouwer@uwaterloo.ca)

Ecological Economics, 2016, vol. 127, issue C, 23-36

Abstract: This study presents the first quantitative meta-analysis of the non-market valuation literature on the external effects associated with wind power production. A data set of 60 observations drawn from 32 studies is constructed. The relative economic values of different types of externalities as well as the impact of various methodological and sample characteristics on welfare estimates are examined. The results indicate a significant effect of visual externalities on welfare estimates in both directions, i.e., a positive effect of visual improvements and a negative effect of deteriorations. This finding corresponds to predictions of the importance of visual impacts in the social science literature. External effects of wind power on biodiversity (mainly birds) do not affect welfare estimates. Indirect externalities caused by conventional sources of electricity that can be avoided by wind power, such as a the reduction of air pollution, do neither have a significant impact on welfare measures. Methodologically, we find substantial but inelastic income effects and, for choice experiments, clear evidence of sensitivity to scope. From a policy point of view, our results suggest that a policy mix combining a promotion of wind turbines with another green policy facilitates expansion of wind energy.

Keywords: Wind power; Renewable energy; Externalities; Non-market valuation; Meta-regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (47)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915304766
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:127:y:2016:i:c:p:23-36

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.04.005

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).

 
Page updated 2024-03-31
Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:127:y:2016:i:c:p:23-36