Insights into wind sites: critically assessing the innovation, cost, and performance dynamics of global wind energy development

Abstract

Reliable empirical data on the siting characteristics and operational performance of wind farms are scarce. Knowing more about the technical characteristics of wind farms provides insight into the business mindset of wind farm developers, which can be useful for policymakers or researchers who are intent on designing policy in a way to optimize wind farm investment by creating better alignment between the investment patterns sought by developers and government support designed to attract investment. This study draws on a unique dataset from 32 wind farms, 20 onshore and 12 in forested areas with a total of more than 2.5 GW installed wind capacity to explore development patterns. The paper examines four hypotheses related to characteristics of wind farms in emerging markets and investigating how project delays and progressive technological enhancements shape wind farm development. In this paper, we explain these results and conclude by extracting lessons from this analysis for creating wind power policy better aligned with developers' interests.