The Nexus Between Wind Energy, Biodiversity Protection and Social Acceptance

Wind power represents a major pathway to curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and thus reducing the rate of climate change. Nevertheless, environmental and biodiversity concerns can often slow down or halt the deployment of wind farms due to local public opposition. In this context, addressing these concerns is essential in order to facilitate the proliferation of wind farms in Europe and the phase-out of fossil fuels from the energy mix.

The aim of this study by EUKI project Wind4Bio is to identify a number of good practices and cases to avoid increasing biodiversity protection at all stages of wind farms’ lifecycle in three participating countries, namely Greece, Latvia, and Poland. The results indicate that although available technological solutions are already being exploited worldwide, there is still room for improvement in these countries. To address this gap, a set of policy recommendations is proposed to accomplish the wind energy targets in the near future while simultaneously mitigating the pertinent biodiversity risks.