Wind farm externalities and public preferences for community consultation in Ireland: A discrete choice experiments approach

In Ireland the deployment of onshore wind turbines has become progressively more difficult in some areas because of the potential negative externalities associated with their operation. Using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) we employ a willingness to accept framework to estimate the external effects of wind turbines on local residents with the inclusion of community consultation and to quantify the compensation required to permit wind farms to be built in Ireland. Our findings reveal that the majority of respondents are willing to make (monetary) tradeoffs to allow for wind power initiatives and we find that respondents require less compensation if provision is made for a community representative and setback distance is increased.