Assessing the economic wind power potential in Austria

In the European Union, electricity production from wind energy is projected to increase by approximately 16% until 2020. The Austrian energy plan aims at increasing the currently installed wind power capacity from approximately 1 GW to 3 GW until 2020 including an additional capacity of 700 MW until 2015. The aim of this analysis is to assess economically viable wind turbine sites under current feed-in tariffs considering constraints imposed by infrastructure, the natural environment and ecological preservation zones in Austria. We analyze whether the policy target of installing an additional wind power capacity of 700 MW until 2015 is attainable under current legislation and developed a GIS based decision system for wind turbine site selection. Results show that the current feed-in tariff of 9.7 ct kW h(-1) may trigger an additional installation of 3544 MW. The current feed-in tariff can therefore be considered too high as wind power deployment would exceed the target by far. Our results indicate that the targets may be attained more cost-effectively by applying a lower feed-in tariff of 9.1 ct kW h(-1). Thus, windfall profits at favorable sites and deadweight losses of policy intervention can be minimized while still guaranteeing the deployment of additional wind power capacities. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.