Simulating wind farm development

Date:
June 19, 2020
Source:
Stanford University
Summary:
Engineers have devised a model to describe how, in the process
of establishing wind farms, interactions between developers and
landowners affect energy production costs.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Wind farms are large, highly technical projects but their development
often relies on personal decisions made by individual landowners and
small communities. Recognizing the power of the human element in wind
farm planning, Stanford University researchers have devised a model that considers how interactions between developers and landowners affect the
success and cost of wind farms.


========================================================================== "I've been doing work on the costs of wind farms for about 10 years and
I've found that the soft costs -- basically the cost interactions between people - - are overlooked," said Erin MacDonald, assistant professor
of mechanical engineering at Stanford. "Existing models can tell us
how to eke out a little more value by making a blade turn in a slightly different way but aren't focused on the reasons why a community accepts
or rejects a wind farm." In a paper, published June 19 in the Journal
of Mechanical Design, the researchers present a model that highlights
three actions developers could take during this process of landowner acquisition -- community engagement meetings, preliminary environmental
studies and sharing plans for wind turbine layout with the landowner --
and investigates how those actions would affect the eventual cost of
the wind farm. The cost analysis suggests that these actions, while contributing to upfront costs, may end up saving developers money in
the long run.

With additional input from real-life landowner acquisition case studies,
the researchers hope to further refine this model to ultimately increase
the success of project implementation and reduce the cost of overall
wind farm development.

Quantifying interactions During the process of planning a wind farm,
a developer uses models to predict how much the project will cost versus
how much energy it will produce. These models are mathematical formulas
that map the relationships between different pieces of a project --
such as materials, labor, land and, in this case, interactions between developers and landowners.



==========================================================================
In previous work, MacDonald and her former graduate student and
postdoctoral fellow, Le Chen, created a model where they integrated
landowner decision- making into a wind farm layout optimization model
-- which otherwise focuses on what physical layout will produce the
most energy. With this model, developers can anticipate and prioritize
which landowners will have the most influence on the success of their
project. This latest work adds details about other interpersonal
interactions throughout the early development process.

"When I worked in the energy industry, the models I used often lacked
human input," said Sita Syal, a graduate student in mechanical engineering
and lead author of the paper. "We don't deny the rigor of economic
or engineering analysis, but we encourage developers to consider the
benefits of social analysis as well." "This work gives developers a
framework to evaluate different actions, whereas right now it's hard to
compare potential impacts of those actions, for example, how investing in landowner relations stacks up against buying more efficient equipment,"
said Yiqing Ding, a graduate student in mechanical engineering and
co-author of the paper.

To account for soft costs in their model, the researchers had to study
and brainstorm different scenarios for the interactions that occur during
wind farm development -- and their outcomes -- and then translate the most crucial details of those interactions into formulas that could integrate
with more traditional project analysis models. Their model, which is an
initial proof-of- concept, suggests that actions that increase landowner involvement in the planning process lead to more landowners accepting a development contract, and this increase in acceptance would translate
to cost savings overall - - particularly in cases where they prevent
failure of the project.

"The model suggests that taking preemptive actions can improve landowners' acceptance but can also incur cost," said Ding. "Timing is also important:
we found that when an action is taken can influence landowner acceptance." While some developers conduct community meetings and preliminary
environmental studies, sharing a layout plan with landowners is
rare. Typically, all landowners involved in a wind farm will be given a
vague contract that does not actually specify how their land will be used
by the final project and, relatedly, how much money they will be paid.



==========================================================================
A co-design process The researchers recognize that making the
development process more transparent is challenging and adds to initial expenses. However, they are still optimistic about the potential for innovative, collaborative actions that could ultimately improve the
success and value of wind power.

For example, MacDonald suggests that virtual reality mockups of turbine
plans might increase landowner contract acceptance, given that previous
studies have found that people tend to be more accepting of the appearance
of turbines once they see them in place.

"It would almost be like a co-design process between the developers and landowners," said MacDonald. "The developer is including the landowner in
the process in a collaborative way by showing them, not just where the
turbines would be, but also explaining the advantages and disadvantages
of different layouts." Other options for increasing transparency and collaboration could include making contracts easier to read and giving landowners some choice, such as two alternatives for how their land
could be used.

Meanwhile, the proof-of-concept model for landowner acceptance requires continued research and refinement. The researchers are hoping to see more studies of soft costs for wind farms in general and would like to gain
more insight into developers' processes -- which tend to be proprietary --
in order to make the model useful to them.

The best outcome would be that all their painstaking efforts to distill
and translate human interaction into mathematical relationships result
in a program where a developer could, for example, input the amount of
money they plan to spend on community meetings and receive a probability
for landowner contracts that is customized to that community.

"We're thinking many steps down the line but someday this could be a
tool for creating community-supported sustainable energy infrastructure,"
said Syal.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Stanford_University. Original written
by Taylor Kubota.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Erin F. MacDonald, Yiqing Ding, Sita M. Syal. Agent-Based
Modeling of
Decisions and Developer Actions in Wind Farm Landowner Contract
Acceptance. Journal of Mechanical Design, 2020; 142 (9) DOI:
10.1115/ 1.4047153 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200619143349.htm

--- up 21 weeks, 3 days, 2 hours, 34 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)