Adverse impacts of wind farm installations impeding the development of wind energy and mitigation pathways thereof

Dipl.-Ing. Spyridoula Karavida, MEng.

Doctoral thesis

Abstract:

This thesis aims to identify the main environmental, ecological, aesthetic, and societal factors that delay the public acceptance of the wind energy and impedes its development, attempting to identify pathways that will mitigate those barriers. Regarding the environmental barriers, the recycling capacity of the wind turbines was deemed the most important one. Wind turbine blades constitute a big challenge in the end-of-life stage, with their composite material being difficult to recycle or reuse. To this direction, the concept of urban regeneration coupled with the circularity of the blades was examined. The green-green dilemma of wind energy was also explored in this thesis, as windfarms in addition to posing a threat to avian wildlife, harm the local biodiversity by reducing, fragmenting, and degrading natural habitats for flora and fauna. In order to explore the public acceptance of the wind energy, interviews and questionnaires were employed to two groups of population: experts in the wind energy field, and permanent populations of areas that have been identified of interest for wind energy projects. Responses were analysed using descriptive statistics and the structural equation modelling, in order to identify the interrelations between the behaviours and the perceptions, awareness, perceived behavioural control and social norms on the subject of wind energy. This model was intended to examine the cause-and-effect relationships between those constructs, which define the basis of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The questionnaires were designed and analysed using TPB simulated in the Structural Equation Modelling using R.

Keywords

wind farms, end-of-life wind turbines, societal acceptance

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 18. 5. 2023

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Peter Kumble, Ph.D.
• Reader: Jan Skaloš, Ph.D., doc. Ing., David Hořák, externi, Paulo Morgado Sousa, externi

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Doctoral programme / field:
Environmental Sciences / Applied and Landscape Ecology