Wind Power and Externalities

This paper provides a literature review on wind power and externalities from multiple perspectives. Specifically, the economic rationale behind world-wide wind power deployment is to mitigate negative externalities of conventional electricity technologies, notably emissions from fossil fuels. However, wind power entails externalities itself. Wind turbines can lower quality of human life through noise and visual impacts, and threaten wildlife. Variable wind electricity can impose additional costs within the electricity system. Locally and nationally, employment, output, and security of electricity supply can be affected. Assembling evidence from diverse strands of research, this literature review provides a structured account of external and indirect costs, both mitigated and imposed.