Social Costs of Setback Distances for Onshore Wind Turbines: A Model Analysis Applied to the German State of Saxony

Abstract Wind power is a key for decarbonizing economies. Yet, wind turbines can produce negative environmental externalities. These include bird collisions and disamenities residents. Setback distances onshore to settlements nests are common policy instrument address these In this paper, we evaluate the cost-effectiveness of setback distances. We use spatially-explicit model investigate social costs different options setbacks red kite nests. terms costs, consider production external associated with residents’ impacts given an exogenously set energy target. The applied using data German State Saxony. Three results are: (1) More restrictive may increase costs. (2) Uniform reduce rather than uniform settlement setbacks. (3) Differentiated types lead substantially lower