A comparative analysis of the costs of onshore wind energy: Is there a case for community-specific policy support?

Anna L. Berka; Jelte Harnmeijer; Deborah Roberts; Euan Phimister; Joshua Msika

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.070

A comparative analysis of the costs of onshore wind energy: Is there a case for community-specific policy support?

Anna L. Berka, Jelte Harnmeijer, Deborah Roberts, Euan Phimister, Joshua Msika

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

There is growing policy interest in increasing the share of community-owned renewable energy generation. This study explores why and how the costs of community-owned projects differ from commercially-owned projects by examining the case of onshore wind in the UK. Based on cross-sectoral literature on the challenges of community ownership, cost differences are attributed to six facets of an organisation or project: internal processes, internal knowledge and skills, perceived local legitimacy of the project, perceived external legitimacy of the organisation, investor motivation and expectations, and finally, project scale. These facets impact not only development costs but also project development times and the probability that projects pass certain critical stages in the development process. Using survey-based and secondary cost data on community and commercial projects in the UK, a model is developed to show the overall impact of cost, time and risk differences on the value of a hypothetical 500kW onshore wind project. The results show that the main factors accounting for differences are higher pre-planning costs and additional risks born by community projects, and suggest that policy interventions may be required to place community- owned projects on a level playing field with commercial projects.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	394-403
Number of pages	10
Journal	Energy Policy
Volume	106
Early online date	12 Apr 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.070
Publication status	Published - Jul 2017

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements and Funding sources: This work has received funding from the
European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 316020; and also from the Scotland’s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change (‘ClimateXChange’). We thank Vijay Bhopal and Sandy Robinson for their invaluable contribution to the original report and the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments on the original draft paper.

Keywords

community energy
onshore wind
ownership
economic costs
risk

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

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Accepted Manuscript
© 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Accepted author manuscript, 582 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "A comparative analysis of the costs of onshore wind energy: Is there a case for community-specific policy support?",

abstract = "There is growing policy interest in increasing the share of community-owned renewable energy generation. This study explores why and how the costs of community-owned projects differ from commercially-owned projects by examining the case of onshore wind in the UK. Based on cross-sectoral literature on the challenges of community ownership, cost differences are attributed to six facets of an organisation or project: internal processes, internal knowledge and skills, perceived local legitimacy of the project, perceived external legitimacy of the organisation, investor motivation and expectations, and finally, project scale. These facets impact not only development costs but also project development times and the probability that projects pass certain critical stages in the development process. Using survey-based and secondary cost data on community and commercial projects in the UK, a model is developed to show the overall impact of cost, time and risk differences on the value of a hypothetical 500kW onshore wind project. The results show that the main factors accounting for differences are higher pre-planning costs and additional risks born by community projects, and suggest that policy interventions may be required to place community- owned projects on a level playing field with commercial projects.",

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author = "Berka, {Anna L.} and Jelte Harnmeijer and Deborah Roberts and Euan Phimister and Joshua Msika",

note = "Acknowledgements and Funding sources: This work has received funding from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 316020; and also from the Scotland{\textquoteright}s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change ({\textquoteleft}ClimateXChange{\textquoteright}). We thank Vijay Bhopal and Sandy Robinson for their invaluable contribution to the original report and the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments on the original draft paper. ",

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AU - Phimister, Euan

AU - Msika, Joshua

N1 - Acknowledgements and Funding sources: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 316020; and also from the Scotland’s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change (‘ClimateXChange’). We thank Vijay Bhopal and Sandy Robinson for their invaluable contribution to the original report and the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments on the original draft paper.

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N2 - There is growing policy interest in increasing the share of community-owned renewable energy generation. This study explores why and how the costs of community-owned projects differ from commercially-owned projects by examining the case of onshore wind in the UK. Based on cross-sectoral literature on the challenges of community ownership, cost differences are attributed to six facets of an organisation or project: internal processes, internal knowledge and skills, perceived local legitimacy of the project, perceived external legitimacy of the organisation, investor motivation and expectations, and finally, project scale. These facets impact not only development costs but also project development times and the probability that projects pass certain critical stages in the development process. Using survey-based and secondary cost data on community and commercial projects in the UK, a model is developed to show the overall impact of cost, time and risk differences on the value of a hypothetical 500kW onshore wind project. The results show that the main factors accounting for differences are higher pre-planning costs and additional risks born by community projects, and suggest that policy interventions may be required to place community- owned projects on a level playing field with commercial projects.

AB - There is growing policy interest in increasing the share of community-owned renewable energy generation. This study explores why and how the costs of community-owned projects differ from commercially-owned projects by examining the case of onshore wind in the UK. Based on cross-sectoral literature on the challenges of community ownership, cost differences are attributed to six facets of an organisation or project: internal processes, internal knowledge and skills, perceived local legitimacy of the project, perceived external legitimacy of the organisation, investor motivation and expectations, and finally, project scale. These facets impact not only development costs but also project development times and the probability that projects pass certain critical stages in the development process. Using survey-based and secondary cost data on community and commercial projects in the UK, a model is developed to show the overall impact of cost, time and risk differences on the value of a hypothetical 500kW onshore wind project. The results show that the main factors accounting for differences are higher pre-planning costs and additional risks born by community projects, and suggest that policy interventions may be required to place community- owned projects on a level playing field with commercial projects.

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KW - ownership

KW - economic costs

KW - risk

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DO - 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.070

M3 - Article

SN - 0301-4215

VL - 106

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JO - Energy Policy

JF - Energy Policy

ER -

A comparative analysis of the costs of onshore wind energy: Is there a case for community-specific policy support?

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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Cite this