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Similarities and differences between the features related to the productivity of onshore and offshore wind energy are developed with the aid of information theory techniques complemented by normal statistics. The data comes from the 13‐year period between 2010 and 2022 for the registered turbines in Germany (practically all). The information content of the generated power is dynamically measured by the mutability of the files storing the information. Monthly statistics show that in spite of the Summer months being relatively unproductive, the corresponding mutability shows the possibility of making use of short periods of intermediate productivity in the case of offshore plants. Favorable conditions for wind energy generation in Wintertime are reached for both onshore and offshore production, although the latter is favored. More homogeneity and stability in the data are still necessary to generalize algorithms, protocols, and criteria. This general study shows the success of the information theory techniques in describing wind ramps. Applications to specific zones could improve the efficiency and capacity factor of particular wind turbines depending on their exposure to wind streams or the blocking of nearby mountains and forestry. The information theory techniques presented here allow for a different and novel viewpoint to detect favorable and unfavorable wind energy periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving national targets on renewable energy poses several challenges, especially in multi-level governance environments. Incentives and specifications on wind energy development might cause uneven progress or even discrepancies. Therefore, governments have commenced adopting 'positive planning' to combine energy targets with spatial and land-use planning. Yet detailed discussions regarding wind energy development remain scarce. In this paper, I explore three explanatory case studies in Germany and Sweden, aiming to provide policymakers and planners with essential knowledge while presenting significant challenges and key lessons learned. Positive planning appears to center on a strong energy target focus, limited space, and a balanced approach, shaped by the sociopolitical context. While Germany has recently embraced positive planning, Sweden started ambitiously but is encountering planning and policy challenges. Planning agencies play a vital role in promoting wind energy targets at mid-scale levels, yet legally binding targets matter. Striking a balance between energy targets and addressing land-use concerns without disregarding them requires managing a delicate trade-off. Early communication and inter-agency collaboration, as seen in Sweden, might facilitate identifying compromises, navigating trade-offs between species protection and renewable energy and offering municipal incentives. Nonetheless, negotiating satisfactory spatial trade-offs for a long-term proof of concept remains a challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational interactions in fields, including their antecedents and consequences, remain under-researched, in particular with regard to relational distance and transformative skills. Through a comparative study of the German and Japanese wind power sectors, we explore the importance of distance among organizational actors and the development of skills. While in the case of Germany a radical increase in wind energy generation can be witnessed, the situation in the field of Japanese wind power remains largely unchanged. We show how different degrees of distance among organizational actors in these two countries result in the different development of skills that stimulate transformation in the field of energy generation. More precisely, we illustrate the pivotal role of distant challengers with their transformative skills for the successful conversion of already established field structures. Our study contributes to field theory by elaborating on the understanding of the evolution of relational distance, thereby grasping the dynamic interplay between the diversity of actors and their skill formation within a certain strategic action field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporally and spatially resolved data on wind power generation are very useful for studying the technical and economic aspects of this variable renewable energy at local and regional levels. Due to the lack of disaggregated electricity data from onshore and offshore turbines in Germany, it is necessary to use numerical simulations to calculate the power generation for a given geographic area and time period. This study shows how such a simulation model, which uses freely available plant and weather data as input variables, can be developed with the help of basic atmospheric laws and specific power curves of wind turbines. The wind power model is then applied to ensembles of nearly 28,000 onshore and 1500 offshore turbines to simulate the wind power generation in Germany for the years 2019 and 2020. For both periods, the obtained and spatially aggregated time series are in good agreement with the measured feed-in patterns for the whole of Germany. Such disaggregated simulation results can be used to analyze the power generation at any spatial scale, as each turbine is simulated separately with its location and technical parameters. This paper also presents the daily resolved wind power generation and associated indicators at the federal state level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a Monte Carlo hazard modeling approach, this study assesses the damage and losses to wind turbines caused by tornadoes over Germany. The model combines observed climatology of tornadoes, exposure map of wind turbines and their capacities, vulnerability curve (first developed in this study), and costs of wind turbines to estimate the likelihood of financial losses of different magnitudes. The losses are presented in terms of aggregated and highest annual losses as a function of the return period. Deterministic modeling of the vulnerability function produced larger variability of the most severe losses (rare, but high-intensity events) compared to the pseudorandom sampling of the damage from the vulnerability curve. Doubling the number of current wind turbines results in smaller expected losses than installing fewer but more powerful units (repowerment). Tornadoes are most frequent in the summer months when the capacity factors of wind farms are the lowest and the electricity consumption is also lower than in the winter months. By repeatedly placing a tornado track of a fixed size over the same wind farm, we further investigated the sensitivity of our model to different parameters. The probability of tornadoes of different intensities hitting a wind turbine over Germany is also calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many developed countries in the world set 2050, Türkiye has determined 2053 as the year of net zero emissions target. Increase in the usage of renewable energy sources such as wind for the energy production is one of the main methods to achieve this goal. Among the renewable energy sources used for electricity production, wind energy has been the most increasing energy source in Türkiye and around the world in recent years. Today, more than 100 countries in the world generate electricity from wind energy. China, the United States of America and Germany are the top 3 countries with the highest installed capacity of wind energy for a long time. Based on 2022 data, Türkiye ranks 7th in Europe and 12th in the world with respect to the installed wind power plant capacity. Among the renewable energy sources, wind energy in Türkiye has the largest installed power and electricity production after hydroelectricity. In this study, the potential and installed capacity of the wind energy for the different countries in the world and Türkiye are analysed, the shares of the wind energy in current energy production and its contributions to the total energy consumption has been examined. The conditions that will enable the world including Türkiye to meet the energy consumption completely from renewable energy sources and the possible contribution of wind energy to all renewable resources have been estimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind energy is one of the renewable energy sources that has been touted to address the challenges of energy security and environmental degradation. This is only attainable if countries with substantial wind energy potential use it in significant proportion to satisfy their energy needs. One promising sector where wind energy can be employed to actualize this potential is the electricity sector. However, the current reality is that fossil fuels still dominate the energy profiles of most economies of the world, including the advanced economies, with wind renewable energy source accounting for a very small proportion of the energy mix. Germany is one of the few countries that offers promising opportunities in deploying wind energy to its full potentials. This study therefore explores the feasibility of substituting wind energy for nuclear energy and other fossil fuels using Germany as a country of focus. We use the ridge regression procedure to analyse yearly time series data for the German power sector that spans the period 1986 to 2018. With respect to output elasticities of the energy inputs, the results reveal that wind and natural gas have positive output elasticity estimates while the estimates for nuclear and coal are negative. We also found that all the inputs pairs have positive substitution elasticity estimates between them. With respect to wind energy, the highest substitutability estimate occurred with nuclear power which is followed by natural gas and then coal. The study recommended that policies such as granting of tax credit for wind energy technology, reduction in property taxes for wind power facilities, and allocation of fund for research and development (R&D) in wind energy technology are recommended to promote the use of wind energy in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For wind energy, the knowledge of the available wind resource is essential. Therefore, specific wind phenomena at the altitude range of wind turbines are currently the focus of investigations. One such specific feature is the low-level jet (LLJ). The article analyses LLJ properties at two locations in the German Bight: A wind lidar system for measuring wind profiles at heights from 50 m to 500 m a.g.l. (above ground level) was first installed at the offshore island of Heligoland, Germany, and then at the coastal island of Norderney, Germany, for one year. The LLJ is defined here as a maximum horizontal wind speed in the vertical profile of horizontal wind speed followed by a minimum wind speed, independent of the mechanism or origin of the phenomenon. The two sites showed a similar annual and diurnal distribution of LLJ events with a maximum occurrence in spring and summer and during the night, and a most frequent jet core height of around 120 m a.g.l. Based on radiosondes launched from Norderney at midnight and noon, it is shown that LLJ events at noon are most frequent when atmospheric conditions are stable. A case study shows the horizontal extent of an LLJ event over at least 100 km by simultaneous wind lidar measurements at four sites in the German Bight and mesoscale simulations with the weather research and forecast (WRF) model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially responsible investment (SRI) is an investment strategy which complies with ethical, social, environmental or corporate governance criteria. Investments in renewable energies are commonly regarded as complying with SRI principles. This study aims to deepen the understanding of individuals' intentions to invest in wind energy. As an underlying framework the Theory of Planned Behavior's constructs attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control were used and statistically tested with an online-survey of 592 participants in 2014. Further, this theory was extended by adding the constructs consumption profile and investor profile to the framework. With the inclusion of the two additional constructs the theoretical model turns to be very suitable as it doubled the share of explained variance of behavioral intention from 25% to 50% compared to the Theory of Planned Behavior. The analysis further shows that subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, consumption profile and investor experience have statistically significant influence on investment intentions in wind energy. However, attitudes towards wind energy investments are not a significant predictor of investment intentions. We conclude that, apart from the scientific implications of our results, our findings have practical applications for the conceptual design of wind energy investments. [Display omitted] • Extension of the TPB by the factors of consumption profile and investor profile. • Extended TPB doubled the share of explained variance in comparison to TPB. • Subjective norms and PBC influence wind energy investment intentions. • Consumption profile and investor experience influence wind energy investment intentions. • Attitudes do not influence wind energy investment intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes mechanical wind-powered water supply systems situated in southern France and northern Germany in the time period between 1880 and 1950, when wind energy was not yet framed as a renewable, but as a rural, decentralized, and manageable solution to generate energy. Using a local approach, I highlight wind energy use in rural areas of Western societies as part of the non-synchronical process of technological modernization that unfolded at the same time as electrification, industrialization, and the implementation of large technological systems. I develop my argument in two steps. First, I provide the micro-historical case studies to examine socio-technological contexts that motivated people to advocate for the use of wind energy in times of electrification and industrialization. Second, I show the connection to general and specific contemporary discourses about wind energy and energy futures in order to provide evidence that the wind projects were part of rural modernization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of energy from wind has a multi‐faceted relationship to visibility. Between 1973 and 1991, various actors in the West German environmental movement made assertions about the visibility of renewable sources of power, but wind energy took on a particular prominence. In this article, the question of how different actors have used knowledge and the materiality of wind turbines for competing purposes is explored. Environmentalists attempted to create visible signs of a valid alternative energy future by tinkering with small, decentralized wind turbines, while the Federal Republic of Germany's Ministry of Research and established energy providers used the failure of the state‐subsidized large‐scale wind‐energy project GROWIAN to criticize renewables and brand their application as misguided. In both cases, actors created new wind energy visibilities to convey their conflicting interests—pitting those advocating a new, environmentally friendly energy system against those who sought consolidation of the large‐scale fossil‐nuclear energy system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid expansion of wind farms in Germany has spurred debate over the environmental impacts of the Energiewende, the country's plan to transition towards renewable energy sources. We explore the opposition to two wind farms in central Germany by local civil initiatives through the Foucauldian notion of counter-conducts and a related Analytics of Protest Framework. Employing qualitative interpretive research methods, including 27 semi-structured interviews, we examine how wind energy critics navigate practices and rationalities governing wind energy expansion in the context of the Energiewende. We argue that critics challenge imperatives of environmental protection and energy justice, while at the same time reinforcing them. Struggles over wind energy manifest as struggles over the legitimate object of environmental protection and the ethical constitution of an environmental subject. Landscapes, both as habitats and scenery, gain impetus as the central tenet in the ecological agenda of wind energy opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy sources (RES) can play a significant role in economic growth. This article examines the development of the wind energy market in the EU. The applicable regulations, directives, and legal acts are reviewed, and the State's role in the development of the renewable energy market is discussed. The analyses were carried out based on the available literature and Eurostat data. The authors of the paper used basic statistics to summarize the changes in wind energy and make a prognosis. The data analysis uses the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Method (ARIMA). The survey found that the highest average wind cumulative installed capacities were in Germany (31026 MW), Spain (18602 MW), United Kingdom (7894 MW) and France (6108 MW). Our analysis indicates that the biggest average annual installed wind capacity was in Germany (2952.6 MW), Spain (1224.5 MW) and the United Kingdom (1363.8 MW). These same countries achieved the highest average wind gross electricity production in the years 2004–17: Germany (50.9 TWh), Spain (39.3 TWh) and United Kingdom (18.9 TWh). The study finds that wind cumulative installed capacity will increase in most countries of the EU. • The European Union onshore wind energy market seems to be stable. • Wind power plays an important role as a source of energy supply. • The most important wind gross electricity producers in the EU are: Germany and Spain. • The highest increase of wind cumulative installed capacity in 2022 will be in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses the potential of power-to-heat (P2H) as an effective option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the heating sector and energy curtailment. P2H promotes the integration of electricity from renewable energy sources into the power grid by utilizing otherwise unused electricity (excess energy) for space heating. To estimate the contribution of this effect from a techno-economic perspective, a linear problem is defined by minimizing the overall heating costs and solved by an open source model generator. Four different scenarios are modeled on a city level, using real heat demand data from a case study regarding the municipality of Greifswald, a region with dominant wind-energy. Results indicate that district heating networks are an important technology for coupling power and heat to meet CO2 reduction targets. In addition, further integration of renewable energy is promoted to reduce overall emissions and achieve Germany's climate protection goals by 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Germany has set ambitious goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases. The decarbonisation of the energy system has been in focus. An important means to achieve this is the increased utilisation of wind energy. The growth of wind power entails changes not only in the electrical system but also in the landscape and environment. Prospectively, scenarios will have to consider a wide range of aspects, not only economics and technology but also nature conservation and social affairs. The authors are participating in the research study "Szenarien für den Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien aus Naturschutzsicht", funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, which examines the possibilities of integrating nature conservation into the development of scenarios. Methods: For aspects of nature conservation to be taken into account in scenario development, a multi-stage methodology has been developed to assess the conflict risk of wind energy and nature conservation throughout Germany. To ensure comparability of the scenarios, all of them are based on the same general framework consisting of fixed excluded areas, the same method of detail allocation and the same overall expected energy output. The "nature conservation" driver is integrated in the form of a nationwide comparative assessment of risk levels. The mapping of spatially differentiated risk levels for wind energy has been achieved in a GIS-based and discursive process. Results: The results show that nature conservation can be addressed properly in scenario-building. Here, the method of multi-criterion scenario-building itself, with its focus on including nature conservation as one of several drivers determining the spatial distribution of wind turbines, is a major result. The authors have developed specific scenarios that mainly address questions of landscape and nature conservation. Out of the four generic scenarios presented for the year 2035, two have nature conservation as their main driver, whereas the other two consider energy-economic drivers only. Examining these scenarios provides insight into the influence of each driver. For example, adding nature conservation as the main driver (highest priority) reduces the specific conflict risk by 26.1%, while at the same time only a relatively small increase in wind turbines is required (+12.5% in numbers, +2.3% in installed power capacity). Conclusion: The methods developed here provide a driver for allocating wind power plants to reduce conflicts in high-risk areas. Furthermore, using the same spatial distribution of risk levels makes it possible to subsequently rate the scenarios from a conservation perspective. The method developed here provides the means to analyse trade-offs between relevant drivers. The "nature conservation" scenarios show a relatively small additional demand for wind turbines but a greater amount of avoided conflict risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present and discuss a new technique based on information theory to detect in advance favorable periods of wind activity (positive ramps) for electricity generation. In addition this technique could also help in the analysis of plant operation and management protocols design. Real data from wind power plants in Germany is used; this information is freely available in the internet with reliable registers every 15 min. A simple protocol to mix such wind energy production with electricity coming from conventional sources is proposed as a way to test the proposed algorithm. The eight-year period 2010–2017 is analyzed looking for different behaviors in wind activity. The first five years (2010–2014) are employed to calibrate the method, while the remaining three years (2015–2017) are used to test previous calibration without any further variation in the tuning possibilities described below. Thus, the proposed protocol is tried on under different seasonal wind conditions. Both the algorithm and the general protocol could be adjusted to optimize performances according to regional conditions. In addition, this algorithm can also be used in retrospective studies to adjust productivity to operational conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Among renewable energy technologies, wind energy accounts for the highest share in gross electricity consumption in Germany. To keep this renewable share up, wind energy project have to combine technological aspects with environmental and societally aspects. The successful planning and implementation of a wind farm crucially depends on acceptance of citizens living in the vicinity of the site. Factors influencing acceptance of wind energy can be categorised into processrelated variables, personal characteristics, perceived side effects and technical and geographical issues. However, research is still missing on how and to what extend the identified factors have an influence on the acceptance and non-acceptance. This article identifies the relevant factors within each of these four categories by investigating which of these factors have an impact upon acceptance or non-acceptance of a project. This identification enables policy makers and operators to implement wind energy projects with a certain acceptance level by the society. The study is based on a German wide online-survey with about 1,400 participants. Using a multinomial logistic regression analysis, the results show that factors in all categories are relevant in driving citizens' active acceptance, ambivalence or active non-acceptance of wind energy. The paper reveals that in particular the factors fear of infrasound and the opportunity for participation plays an essential role in the categories perceived side effects and process-related variables. The fear of infrasound has the most significant negative influence on the acceptance. Also the participation level, alibi participation, displays significant negative effects on the acceptance. Furthermore, the results suggest that some of the most recent changes in the legal framework regulating new wind energy projects in Germany counteract acceptance according the findings of this study. In particular, results show that the distance between the place of residence and wind turbines has no significant influence on the acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Especially since the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe (2011), Germany has expanded its renewably sourced energies. Nuclear power is to be phased out by 2022. What is central to federal policy is the expansion of wind-generated energy. Plans for new wind farms have, however, faced opposition. And the transportation of electricity from the windy north to the high-use south entails an expansion of the existing power grid, which also provokes conflict. The article scrutinises dominant patterns of discourse on these issues. Based on current discourse theory, the research sheds light on the argumentative power of citizens' initiatives with respect to nature conservation, landscape, health and economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we tested how attitudes toward the German energy transition, the perceived fairness of decision-making processes and their outcomes, the perceived risks and benefits of wind energy, and the trust in key actors (federal government, local government, large energy companies, and municipal utilities) affect both the general acceptance and local acceptance (acceptance of wind farms situated 500 m from the respondents' home) of wind farms in Germany. The respective data were gained from a representative random survey (n = 2.009) in Germany. The findings show that most of the aforementioned predictors significantly influence the public acceptance of wind energy. Perceived risks and fairness become (more) important in the context of both general and local acceptance of onshore wind farms, while the general attitude toward the energy transition is of greater relevance in the context of the general acceptance of offshore wind farms. Furthermore, trust in large energy companies plays a mixed role concerning general and local acceptance. Our results provide valuable insights for understanding public reactions toward wind energy projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers how the state can be used successfully to initiate and support an energy shift from nuclear energy to renewable energy, as demonstrated by Germany’s Renewable Energy Act from 2000 and its previous Electricity Feed-in-Law (1991). As a result of these nationwide policies, Germany has reduced levels of greenhouse gas emissions, has a higher level of both energy security and employment in the renewable energy industry than the US. Germany is a global leader in this industry and provides a model for other nations in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The development of renewable and sustainable energy is advanced by public financial support. This is particularly so in the German Energiewende, which seeks to replace nuclear and fossil electricity generation with wind, sun, and biomass. We study the impact of the (changes in the) feed-in tariff (FIT) policy on the investment in wind electricity generation capacity in Germany in the period 2000-2014. We estimate a generic investment model that includes this support mechanism, the cost of capital, investment risks such as wind and price volatility, and manufacturing costs. We discuss specific features for different types of wind energy investors, such as the incumbents, small private investors, diversified companies, and independent power producers. We find that a change in the FIT has a negative impact on investment capacity regarding the generation of wind energy: A one monetary unit increase in the variation of the tariff is to be associated with a decrease by 0.17 megawatts of wind capacity installed. We argue that it is policy uncertainty that makes investors shy away from making real investments. We also argue that the drivers for wind energy investment can differ along different types of firms. For the traditional power producers, especially electricity price volatility, construction costs, and carbon prices seem to matter. But for the other investor types, the FIT is crucial indeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind turbines are increasingly being installed in forests, which can lead to land use disputes between climate mitigation efforts and nature conservation. Environmental impact assessments precede the construction of wind turbines to ensure that wind turbines are installed only in managed or degraded forests that are of potentially low value for conservation. It is unknown, nevertheless, if animals deemed of minor relevance in environmental impact assessments are affected by wind turbines in managed forests. We investigated the impact of wind turbines on common forest birds, by counting birds along an impact-gradient of wind turbines in 24 temperate forests in Hesse, Germany. During 860 point counts, we counted 2231 birds from 45 species. Bird communities were strongly related to forest structure, season and the rotor diameter of wind turbines, but were not related to wind turbine distance. For instance, bird abundance decreased in structure-poor (-38%) and monocultural (-41%) forests with wind turbines, and in young (-36%) deciduous forests with larger and more wind turbines (-24%). Overall, our findings suggest that wind turbines in managed forests partially displace common forest birds. If these birds are displaced to harsh environments, wind turbines might indirectly contribute to a decline of their populations. Yet, forest bird communities are locally more sensitive to forest quality than to wind turbine presence. To prevent further displacement of forest animals, forests of lowest quality for wildlife should be preferred in spatial planning for wind turbines, for instance small and structure-poor monocultures along highways., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The article focuses on higher financing costs associated with direct marketing of wind power, which is a mandate included in the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) enacted by the German federal government in 2000. Topics discussed include the impact of forecast deviations on operating costs facing plant operators, the difference in transferring costs of forecast deviations to plant operators or to network operators and the impact of the EEG reform on plant operators' revenue.

ABSTRACT A statistical-dynamical downscaling ( SDD) approach for the regionalization of wind energy output ( Eout) over Europe with special focus on Germany is proposed. SDD uses an extended circulation weather type ( CWT) analysis on global daily mean sea level pressure fields with the central point being located over Germany. Seventy-seven weather classes based on the associated CWT and the intensity of the geostrophic flow are identified. Representatives of these classes are dynamically downscaled with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM. By using weather class frequencies of different data sets, the simulated representatives are recombined to probability density functions ( PDFs) of near-surface wind speed and finally to Eout of a sample wind turbine for present and future climate. This is performed for reanalysis, decadal hindcasts and long-term future projections. For evaluation purposes, results of SDD are compared to wind observations and to simulated Eout of purely dynamical downscaling ( DD) methods. For the present climate, SDD is able to simulate realistic PDFs of 10-m wind speed for most stations in Germany. The resulting spatial Eout patterns are similar to DD-simulated Eout. In terms of decadal hindcasts, results of SDD are similar to DD-simulated Eout over Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, and Benelux, for which high correlations between annual Eout time series of SDD and DD are detected for selected hindcasts. Lower correlation is found for other European countries. It is demonstrated that SDD can be used to downscale the full ensemble of the Earth System Model of the Max Planck Institute ( MPI-ESM) decadal prediction system. Long-term climate change projections in Special Report on Emission Scenarios of ECHAM5/ MPI-OM as obtained by SDD agree well to the results of other studies using DD methods, with increasing Eout over northern Europe and a negative trend over southern Europe. Despite some biases, it is concluded that SDD is an adequate tool to assess regional wind energy changes in large model ensembles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on SEA applied in the wind energy sector in the UK and Germany. Based on a review of 18 SEAs, it is found that the quality of SEA documentation is variable, with over a third of them being deemed unsatisfactory. Furthermore, SEA processes are conducted to varying degrees of effectiveness, with scoping a strength but impact prediction and mitigation weaknesses. Generally speaking, the influence of SEA on German wind energy plan making was found to be low and the influence of SEA on UK plans deemed to be moderate. The German plans had a low influence mainly because of a perceived high environmental performance of the underlying plans in the first instance. Substantive outcomes of SEA are not always clear and the influence of SEA on decision making is said to be limited in many cases. Finally, a lack of effective tiering between SEA and project level EIA is also observed. In addition, our findings echo some of the weaknesses of SEA practice found in previous studies of SEA effectiveness, including poor impact prediction and significance sections and a lack of detailed monitoring programmes for post plan implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we establish how effectively EIA is currently utilised in the deployment of onshore and offshore wind energy in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany. In this context, the quality of EIA documentation and the coverage of a range of key EIA aspects of 20 developments are evaluated. Furthermore, the impact of EIA on decision making is established, based on opinions of decision makers and other stakeholders. We find that whilst there are certain weaknesses, overall EIA information is central to decision making, and EIA is resulting in major project modifications. Our results differ from the findings of most previous studies which usually observed a moderate impact on decision making only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates the technical and economic potential of energy-intensive industries to provide demand-side management (DSM) in electricity and balancing markets through 2030. Increasing shares of renewables will lead to a rising demand for ancillary services at the same time that less conventional plants will be available to provide these services. This paper makes projections on the extent to which DSM from industrial processes can provide economic benefits in electricity markets with renewables by providing tertiary reserve capacity. Different industrial processes and their specific technical and economic properties are investigated and compared with other storage devices and electricity generation technologies. Based on an extension of an existing European electricity market model, simulations are used here to make long-term forecasts for market prices, dispatch and investments in the electricity markets through linear optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany has assumed a leading position in the global wind energy market, with its coastal districts of North Frisia and Dithmarschen as two outstanding locations. These coastal landscapes are the outcome of interaction between human and non-human forces throughout the centuries, and they are characterized by the wind, the tides and the sea as well as the building of dikes, technological innovations and the interplay of regional, national and trans-national forces. Against this background, the short but complex transition from a mainly agricultural landscape into a wind energy landscape is interpreted here following Latour's (2005b) concept of a Dingpolitik (politics of things) and complementary assumptions suggested by the European Landscape Convention. I will argue that the rise of wind energy in Northern Germany is not only the result of top-down governance strategies, but of a collective effort based on the dynamics of the collective of people and things that make up these landscapes. Based on ethnographic examples, this article analyses the emergence of wind energy landscapes in Northern Germany from the first implementation of wind turbines to civic wind parks as a form of social practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Wind energy has become the major renewable energy source in Germany with an installed capacity of more than 20GW and an annual output of about 40TWh in 2007. In this paper we analyze the extent to which wind energy can replace fossil capacities based on wind injection and demand data for 2006 through June 2008. The results indicate that the wind potential in Germany will not allow a significant reduction of fossil capacities. We also assess the potential savings due to wind energy. The German market is modeled with and without wind input to estimate the net savings of fossil fuels in the observation period. We find that the cost-saving potential for electricity production is quite significant and exceeds the subsidies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Wind energy is the fastest-growing electricity-generating technology. The wind energy targets set during the last decade have all been surpassed. Climate change is a major challenge to sustainable development worldwide and is increasingly recognized by forward-looking political and business leaders. One of the tasks we are facing is a profound transformation of our energy system over the next few decades of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies and dramatically increasing energy efficiency. This article reviews the progress made by wind energy in recent years, and discusses the potential of this technology in the world. The Denmark and Germany experience has shown that wind energy today comprises a reliable and cost-effective technology with positive effects on the reduction of CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper applies nodal pricing as an economic approach to efficient use of electricity networks utilization for the fairly large German grid. We combine a straightforward welfare maximization with the technical specificities of electricity flows on a realistically large network. The nodal pricing model is applied in order to analyze the impact of extended German wind power production on the power grid. The paper shows that economic modeling, taking into account physical and technical constraints, makes important contributions to the assessment and optimization of system configuration and operation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

During recent years, closed-end funds have become one of the dominant financing schemes for wind farms in Germany. Having evolved out of the traditional model of local citizen-financed wind farms (‘Bu¨rgerwindpark’), closed-end wind funds can be seen as a logical consequence of the increasing professionalism and specialisation trend within the wind business as a whole. This article illustrates the basic market mechanisms behind the project development and financing approach based on closed-end funds and gives an overview on recent market developments in Germany. Finally, the transferability of this approach to other technologies or other regional markets is discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In spite of the well-acknowledged environmental benefits of electricity generation from wind energy, there is increasing concern about impacts from wind turbines on local ecosystems and on the natural scenery. A GIS-based approach is developed to analyse the effect of different nature conservation criteria on the wind energy potential in quantitative terms. Results for two case study regions in Germany, representing a coastal area with quite good wind conditions and an inland region with limited wind resources, illustrate to which extent the ban of wind turbines in, for example, landscape conservation areas, special bird protection areas, or areas with high visual sensitivity reduces the potential for electricity generation from wind energy. We conclude that even under strict nature conservation constraints there is still a large potential for on-shore wind energy use that can be used to establish a sustainable electricity supply in Germany. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Social acceptance is increasingly becoming a limiting factor in implementing the energy transition in Germany. From today's perspective, the expansion of wind energy and future transmission grids is only somewhat a technical or economic challenge rather than a social one. Since political decisions on the energy system transformation are often derived from findings of energy system modeling, it seems necessary to increasingly integrate the effects of socio-ecological aspects, such as acceptance issues in energy models. In this paper, an approach is introduced to address effects of social acceptance in energy system models by comparing the influence of different distribution scenarios of wind energy in Germany on the expansion need for future transmission lines. The results show that a socio-ecologic distribution of onshore wind installations according to a balanced burden of the German society does not reduce the grid expansion need significantly compared to an economic siting. An actual reduction of planned transmission grids could just be achieved by a more decentral scenario, including decentral market design. The sensitivity of regionalization is an opportunity to consider local acceptance issues within energy system models and should move more into focus inside the procedure of the current grid development process in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast-growing energy demand of the world makes the researchers focus on finding new energy sources or optimizing already-developed approaches. For an efficient use of solar and wind energy in an energy system, correct design and sizing of a power system is of high importance and improving or optimizing the process of data obtaining for this purpose leads to higher performance and lower cost per unit of energy. It is essential to have the most precise possible estimation of solar and wind energy potential and other local weather parameters in order to fully feed the demand and avoid extra costs. There are various methods for obtaining local data, such as local measurements, official organizational data, satellite obtained, and reanalysis data. In this paper, the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications dataset version 2 (MERRA-2) dataset provided by NASA is introduced and its performance is evaluated by comparison to various locally measured datasets offered by meteorological institutions such as Meteonorm and Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD, or Germany's National Meteorological Service) around the world. After comparison, correlation coefficients from 0.95 to 0.99 are observed for monthly global horizontal irradiance values. In the case of air temperature, correlation coefficients of 0.99 and for wind speed from 0.81 to 0.99 are observed. High correlation with ground measurements and relatively low errors are confirmed, especially for irradiance and temperature values, that makes MERRA-2 a valuable dataset, considering its world coverage and availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A general framework for annual averaged power output generation for wind turbines is developed. • The pipeline relies on wind speed data, power curves of wind turbines and wind speed distributions. • Considerations regarding uncertainty quantification are presented. • Detailed examples with cubic or logistic power curves and Weibull, Kappa or Wakeby wind speed distributions are presented. • Simulation studies of weather stations from California (United States) and Germany prove the framework's flexibility. Wind energy represents an important future energy source due to rising global interest in renewable energies. For this reason, power output prediction of wind turbines is a prominent task for supporting decisions regarding future sites. The aim of this study is therefore the development of a general framework for estimating annual averaged power output generation of wind turbines. This modular framework relies on general large wind speed data sets, general power curve modeling and general wind speed distributions - possible examples are Weibull, Kappa or Wakeby distributions. Cubic spline interpolation or logistic power curves and the three aforementioned wind speed distributions are applied as example combinations of the abstract framework to one weather station located at List, Germany in detail. Cubic spline interpolation for power curves and different wind speed distributions are finally adapted to weather stations from California and Germany for annual averaged wind power output predictions. As a main result of the computational study, comparison of semi-empirical power output predictions and estimated power output predictions showed that Kappa and Wakeby distributions are superior to two-parameter Weibull distributions. Summarizing, the proposed modular framework proves to be a flexible, unifying and useful tool for future assessment and future comparative studies of different prediction combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Evaluation of the long-term small-scale spatiotemporal wind-solar complementarity. • Application of t copulas to quantify solar-wind correlation. • Analysis of inter-regional connectivity of solar and wind resources. • Limited potential for wind-solar complementarity in Germany. • Wind-solar complementarity strongly depends on temporal scale. The anticipated greater penetration of the variable renewable energies wind and solar in the future energy mix could be facilitated by exploiting their complementarity, thereby improving the balance between energy supply and demand. Based on the hypothesis that a complementary use of wind and solar is possible, this investigation provides information about the spatiotemporal scales on which there is potential for the synergistic use of wind and solar in Germany. The results show that the wind-solar complementarity depends very much on the time scale under consideration. Regardless of the spatial scale, potential for complementarity is greatest on the seasonal scale, where the annual cycles of surface incoming solar radiation and surface wind speed show the strongest anti-correlation. On all other scales studied, including daily and inter-annual scales, the potential for wind-solar complementarity is significantly lower with wind and solar being usually very weakly anti-correlated or being uncorrelated. On these scales, there is hardly any compensation of times with low solar resource by the wind resource and vice versa. There is also hardly any solar-solar or wind-wind complementarity in different regions because their regional inter-regime dynamics are similar and do not show any significant differences. From the results, it is therefore concluded that there is little potential for the complementary use of wind and solar in Germany, except on the seasonal scale. Germany's low complementarity potential reinforces the need to systematically advance other options for mitigating the individual volatilities of wind and solar such as energy storage systems and transboundary exchange of renewable power in a pan-European electricity grid. Although the results are limited to a single country, the proposed novel data-driven approach can be readily transferred to study wind-solar complementarity in other parts of the world. It enables for the first time the consistent small-scale assessment of wind-solar complementarity in large, transnational areas and has the potential for being established as an essential tool to improve electrical grid operability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are growing concerns about the effects of wind turbines on wildlife. Additional mortality due to collisions with wind turbines has long been recognized as a direct negative effect, but less obvious effects such as changes in behaviour or displacement of disturbance sensitive wildlife are increasingly moving into focus. We combined systematic mapping of habitat structure and species presence before and after turbine-construction at 6 study areas in Germany, Austria and Sweden to study the effects of wind turbine presence on a large forest grouse species: the capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus). We studied effects of wind turbines on the observation density (percent of sampling plots with capercaillie presence per year and study area) and habitat selection. We did not find a significant difference in overall observation densities between turbine and control areas after turbine construction. At the sampling-plot scale, however, selection of habitats affected by wind turbines was reduced, indicating a form of habitat deterioration. This was detectable up to 650 m distance to the turbines, present across all study areas and independent of the structural habitat suitability at the respective site. Our results show that a disturbance-sensitive forest bird species is affected by wind energy development, and that critical-distances should be taken into account when planning wind energy development in grouse habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denmark, Germany, and Finland are countries that have emerged as technology leaders in key renewable energy fields—wind energy, solar power, and bioenergy. In this article, we dig into the policy trajectories of these countries and concentrate particularly on a phenomenon that is common for them all—the long-term commitment to promoting particular renewable energy (RE) technologies. Analyzing commitment, its causes and its consequences, can be considered important, as earlier findings show that long-term, consistent policy signals are a key for policy success. In this article, we point out that this 'sticking' to a RE technology has emerged and manifested in multiple ways in the case countries. Examples include relying on existing cultural capacities when navigating energy policy direction, strategically promoting scaling of technology markets to root new energy practices in society and developing energy policies as an extension of existing socio-technical structures. In order to understand these dynamics in more depth, we utilize literature on policy robustness and resilience. While all the case countries, Denmark, Germany, and Finland, have generated robust RE policy goals, Finland has failed to foster resilience simultaneously. We conclude that analysing stickiness of policy elements can be fruitful when seeking to understand and design transformative policies. Further, it can be taken as a complementary analytical perspective in the policy mix studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have noted that, unexpectedly, Germany's dramatic expansion of wind and solar energy coincided with a reduction of short-term balancing reserves. This observation has been dubbed the "German Balancing Paradox". This paper provides further and updated evidence: since 2011, wind and solar energy have nearly doubled while both reserve requirements and reserve use have declined by 50%. The paper quantitatively explores one reason for reduced balancing needs: increased and improved short-term wholesale electricity trading on the intraday market. Trading is now commonly done around the clock and based on quarter-hour, rather than full-hour, contracts. The shift to quarter-hourly products alone explains a decrease in balancing energy by 17%. There is also strong evidence that market parties respond efficiently to imbalance charges, suggesting that incentive-based approaches to electricity balancing work. • Since 2011 wind and solar energy nearly doubled; balancing energy decreased by 50%. • One reason for this is the expansion of short-term electricity trading. • It is now common to trade electricity around the clock, and on a 15-min basis. • In general, the paper finds support for efficient short-term electricity markets. • Good market design allows integrating large volumes of renewable energy at low cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A statistical-dynamical downscaling procedure is applied to investigate the climatological wind field over a complex terrain area in central Germany. The model domain, 80x 87 km, is dominated by flat terrain in the westerly and northerly part and encompasses the Teuteburger Wald and the Wiehengebirge areas with hills up to 330 m a.m.s.l. in the southeasterly region. The downscaling procedure combines a large-scale regionally representative wind statistic and a high-resolution numerical atmospheric mesoscale model. A cluster analysis of a 12-years time series of radiosonde data provides 143 clusters each being a combination of the geostrophic wind components and the vertical temperature gradient. These parameter sets constitute the reference state for highly-resolved steady-state wind field simulations with a non-hydrostatic model. Weighting the resulting wind fields with the corresponding cluster frequency gives climatologically representative frequency distributions of the wind speed and -direction. By combining the wind speed frequency distribution with the power curve of wind turbines the yearly energy output of 46 wind turbines inside the simulation domain was calculated and compared to the actual production. No bias or systematic trend in the deviation was found. The relative differences for the smallest turbines reach 100 percent with a decreasing tendency to larger units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]