Posters

Abstract

Wind power deployment has grown substantially over the past two decades. To meet climate mitigation targets and advance the decarbonization of the economy, a significant increase in installed capacity is still required. This expansion must be balanced with efforts to minimize environmental and social impacts, while ensuring the support and acceptance of citizens and local stakeholders. Currently, access to information on wind power deployment opportunities and potential impacts is fragmented and often limited to industry experts. To address this gap, and to provide a basis for broader engagement, we have developed the WIMBY interactive map and forum. The platform is designed to make information accessible to a wider public, facilitate high-level assessments of wind power installations, and support more objective discussions around individual projects. The front-end of the WIMBY interactive map was developed following a design thinking approach, including co-creation workshops with researchers and representative users, and multiple rounds of feedback around individual capabilities. The back-end serves two dozens of data sets and a dozen of models that allow the assessment of techno-economic characteristics of potential windfarms as well as their impact on society and the environment. These include e.g. data on wind speeds, power density, collisions and mortality risks for birds and bats, exclusion zones, regional regulations on set-back distances as well as models to assess energy output, capacity factor,  noise, shadow-flicker, land use and land cover change, life-cycle climate change impacts and job creation.  Additional capabilities such as profile creation, saving and sharing projects and a forum are also provided in order to facilitate interaction among stakeholders interested in particular projects. The WIMBY interactive map and forum is useful for any location in Europe and brings state-of-the-art data and models to virtually everyone with a computer and an internet connection.