Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
forums where interested stakeholders are given an opportunity to come and
learn about proposed developments and air grievances prior to the incep-
tion of the project.
Eventually, the wind power development process enters a third stage—
maturity. During the maturity stage, wind power projects become more
physically invasive and utilities are presented with greater challenges in
terms of balancing loads. Typically at the maturity stage, larger scale devel-
opments become the norm. Cooperative or individual investments are
superseded by wind farms that are owned and operated by larger corporate
entities.
hese developments pose new policy challenges. One key challenge at the
maturity stage is maintaining community support for wind power expan-
sion. Policies that continue to engender community beneits associated
with wind farm developments are important. Moreover, policies aimed at
encouraging the development of larger wind farms either ofshore or in
remote locations take on greater relevance. Consequently, policymakers
also begin to confront challenges associated with connecting these remote
projects to the grid. Germany is experiencing such challenges at the present
time. In short, at the maturity stage, policymakers are increasingly taxed
with the challenge of expanding the boundaries of public acceptance.
Failure to recognize that wind power development is an evolutionary
process that requires diferent policies at diferent phases can lead to unan-
ticipated ineiciencies. For example, in the early days of wind power devel-
opment in the United States, insuicient attention was given to nurturing
domestic wind power manufacturing irms that were capable of design-
ing reliable wind turbines. Consequently, wind power systems that were
installed in response to a subsequent subsidy were prone to failure, under-
mining utility support for this new technology. Similarly, both Denmark
and Germany have discovered that policies aimed at encouraging a transi-
tion to large-scale wind farm developments need to be complemented by
policies that continue to reward communities for hosting large-scale wind
farms. Initial failure to incentivize communities to host such developments
necessitated more elaborate policy adjustments that to this day are still
underway.
11.4 AVENUES OF FURTHER RESEARCH AND CONCLUSION
In assessing the utility of the Political SET framework, one cannot help but
be reminded of a quotation from Plato's Republic: “he learning and knowl-
edge that we have is, at the most, but little compared with that of which
