Assessing the Impact of Offshore Wind Power Deployment on Fishery: A Synthetic Control Approach

Global efforts to decarbonize the energy sector are necessary to curb global warming, and many countries plan to achieve this through the rapid deployment of offshore wind power. However, the deployment will likely decelerate if local fishers plying their trade near maritime areas likely to host offshore wind farms oppose the deployments due to anticipated fishery disruptions. To date, there is no body of knowledge on the causal impact of offshore wind farm installation on local fisheries. Using fishery production panel data at the municipality level in Japan, this study applies a synthetic control method to measure causal impacts. The results suggest that offshore wind farms currently installed in Japan are unlikely to disrupt local fisheries. We find no statistically significant effects either on aggregated fishery production or on production categorized by fishery type. Moreover, we find no spatial spillover effects. Although the generalization of our findings requires caution because they are based on small-scale wind farms, our results imply that such moderate-size wind projects may not harm local fisheries.