Wind power deployment in Germany: trade-offs of spatial planning instruments

Wind turbines may cause negative environmental impacts, such as residential disamenities or adverse effects for ecologically protected areas. Spatial planning policies are a common instrument to address these impacts, e.g. by excluding areas from wind power. While the targeted environmental impacts...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Charlotte Geiger, Philip Tafarte, Elisabeth Wolfram, Paul Lehmann
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-12-01
Series:Journal of Land Use Science
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/1747423X.2025.2458849
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Summary:Wind turbines may cause negative environmental impacts, such as residential disamenities or adverse effects for ecologically protected areas. Spatial planning policies are a common instrument to address these impacts, e.g. by excluding areas from wind power. While the targeted environmental impacts may be effectively reduced, spatial planning policies can cause trade-offs with untargeted environmental impacts. We assess these trade-offs in a spatial optimization model based on high-resolution GIS data of the potential areas for onshore wind power in Germany. We find that considerable trade-offs exist between environmental impacts, but not for the average levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of wind power production. Combinations of spatial planning policies result in higher trade-offs. Additionally, we identify five underlying drivers for the size of trade-offs.
ISSN:1747-423X
1747-4248