Evaluation of the Spatial Suitability of Offshore Wind Farm—A Case Study of the Sea Area of Liaoning Province

Actively promoting the development of offshore wind power is an inevitable choice if the People’s Republic of China plans to fulfill its international commitments, respond to climate change, ensure energy security, and improve energy infrastructure. Inevitably, offshore wind power development will conflict with other marine activities, including mariculture and shipping. Therefore, learning how to develop offshore wind power without affecting the environment or conflicting with other marine activities is crucial to the conservation of spatial marine resources. The rapid development of offshore wind power in Liaoning Province has allowed researchers to develop an index system that can be used to evaluate the suitability of offshore wind power development sites by considering costs, environmental protection, and sea management. Spatial analysis and a multi-attribute evaluation method integrating a fuzzy membership function were used to evaluate offshore wind farm placement in Liaoning. The results classified 5%, 18%, 21%, and 56% offshore areas of Liaoning as very suitable, relatively suitable, somewhat unsuitable, and unsuitable for wind power development, respectively. The results of this paper can provide a reference for decision makers who plan for offshore wind farm locations under the constraints of high-intensity development.

Status Quo, Development and Utilization Efficiencies of Wind Power in China

As a kind of green and pollution-free renewable energy, wind energy has great development prospects. How to promote the development of the wind power industry and improve the efficiency of wind power development and utilization is an urgent problem that needs to be solved. On the basis of analyzing the current situation of China’s power development, especially wind power development, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) method was used to analyze China’s wind power development and utilization efficiencies from 2005 to 2020. The results show that the development efficiency of China’s wind power was mainly affected by pure technical efficiency, while the utilization efficiency of China’s wind power was mainly affected by scale efficiency. Therefore, when considering wind power development, the management of wind power development should be strengthened, in order to realize the optimal allocation of resources. In terms of wind power utilization, the output scale of wind power utilization should be expanded to increase the contribution of wind power products to the national economy.

Achieving a high share of non-hydro renewable integration in Brazil through wind power: regional growth and employment effects

In this policy brief we investigate the wind power development in Brazil and its effects on employment and regional growth. Using the CGE model TERM-BR10, we estimate that in the absence of the policy framework that supported wind power expansion there would have been a GDP loss of 0.15% nationally and of 1.1% in the Northeast region (which concentrates over 90% of wind installed capacity), with negative impacts to labour market mostly over skilled jobs.

Flight Altitudes of Raptors in Southern Africa Highlight Vulnerability of Threatened Species to Wind Turbines

Energy infrastructure, particularly for wind power, is rapidly expanding in Africa, creating the potential for conflict with at-risk wildlife populations. Raptor populations are especially susceptible to negative impacts of fatalities from wind energy because individuals tend to be long-lived and reproduce slowly. A major determinant of risk of collision between flying birds and wind turbines is the altitude above ground at which a bird flies. We examine 18,710 observations of flying raptors recorded in southern Africa and we evaluate, for 49 species, the frequency with which they were observed to fly at the general height of a wind turbine rotor-swept zone (50–150 m). Threatened species, especially vultures, were more likely to be observed at turbine height than were other species, suggesting that these raptors are most likely to be affected by wind power development across southern Africa. Our results highlight that threatened raptor species, particularly vultures, might be especially impacted by expanded wind energy infrastructure across southern Africa.

An Anatomy of Failure: China's Wind Power Development

China is currently the world’s largest installer of wind power. However, with twice the installed wind capacity compared to the United States in 2015, the Chinese produce less power. The question is: Why is this the case? This article shows that Chinese grid connectivity is low, Chinese firms have few international patents, and that export is low even though production capacity far exceeds domestic production needs. Using the tools of Austrian economics, China’s wind power development from 1980 to 2016 is documented and analyzed from three angles: (a) planning and knowledge problems, (b) unproductive entrepreneurship, and (c) bureaucracy and government policy. From a theoretical standpoint, both a planning problem and an entrepreneurial problem are evident where governmental policies create misallocation of resources and a hampering of technological development.