| 摘要 | 1. Background and Objective
Background of This Research
Total installation capacity of wind power plants in South Korea reaches 174MW in 2007. According to the installation plan of Korea Institute of Energy Research and Core research center of wind power, the total capacity is expected to rise into 1,404MW. Although there are several advantages in the wind power such as clean energy, substitution of imported fossil energy, and spill-over effects, there are various kinds of disadvantages including noise, disturbance of ecosystem, transformation of landscape, and etc. Especially, many of large wind power plans have been constructed in the mountainous areas, which may cause big impacts on the ecosystem as well as natural landscape. In the future, the number of wind power plants which will be built in the mountainous sites will increase considerably. Therefore, we need to investigate the possible impacts of wind power constructions on the economic as well as environmental aspects.
2. The Purpose of This Research
This research aims at identifying and quantifying possible economic and environmental benefits and costs of wind power generation installed in the mountainous areas applying a conjoint analysis which subjects to one of methodologies to evaluate non-market value of environmental goods or willingness to pay for a new product.
In general, contingent valuation methods have been employed in order to estimate non-market value of environmental goods or other public goods. However, many critiques including starting point bias, strategic behavior, payment method bias, and hypothetic market bias are under debates, since these biases can lead to wrong estimation of willingness pay for the value of public goods. In contrast, conjoint analysis has less bias problems as well as it can estimate individual attribute of a public goods. Therefore, conjoint analysis seems a good approach to evaluate each attribute of wind power generation plants.
In this research, we take account of economic spill-over, substitution of imported fossil energy, improvement of air quality, disturbance of ecosystem, and transformation of landscape for the attributes of wind power sites. Through the face-to-face survey for 500 persons, we asked respondents choices of alternatives. Multinomial logit models are applied to analyze the survey results. Finally we derive policy implication from the estimation of willingness to pay for each attribute.
3. Major Findings
Sample groups include 500 of residents of major metropolitan cities, Kang-won do, and Kyeong Sang-Buk do. We took various kinds of econometric analysis for different groups depending on income, age, region, sex, knowledge on the wind power generation and education. The analysis showed that models for residents of Kang-won and Kyeong Sang-Buk do, and respondents who have been in the wind power sites were the most fitted with our expectation. Between two econometric approaches, estimation from multinomial choice model was found better than rank-ordered choice model. Hence this implies that respondents found difficulty in using given information in order to determine ranking of given alternatives.
The impact of individual attribute on the choice was the biggest in the substitution of imported energy, followed by economic spill-over effect, improvement of air quality, transformation of landscape, and disturbance of ecosystem.
For the heterogeneity of different groups, residents from rural areas evaluated more accurately than those from metropolitan areas. This result shows that respondents who live in the rural area use given information more effectively than those from metropolitan area.
Second finding is that the construction of wind power plants affects landscape as well as ecosystem in negative ways. Willingness to pay for reducing the impact on the landscape is higher than that for reducing the impact on the ecosystem. The impact on the landscape was highly controversial since tourists who visit the wind farm areas regard the existence of wind power plants as exotic scenic view, while residents nearby the plants suffer from the unusual view. This study showed that at least respondents who live in the rural areas or have been in the plants consider the existence of the wind power affects landscape negatively.
Th analysis on the demographic variables shows that highly educated group and high-income groups reported more logical choices. Besides, the direct experience on the wind power plants affects valuation on the negative attributes significantly.
The willingness to pay for each attribute in the groups of rural sites and respondents who experienced wind power plants can be summarized as follows. First of all, a household's willingness to pay for the substitution of imported fossil energy is estimated as 27,212 won and 29,232 won per annum. Second, the willingness to pay for the economic spill-over is estimated as 21,440won and 23,410won per annum. Thirdly, the willingness to pay for the improvement of air quality is estimated as 10,445 won and 12,589won per annum. Fourthly, the willingness to pay for the reduction of transformation of landscape is estimated as 9,252won and 9,390won per annum. Finally, the willingness to pay for the reduction of disturbance of ecosystem is estimated as 6,663won and 7,886won per annum.
4. Conclusion
This research shows that the promotion of wind power plants can improve social welfare of areas where those plants are constructed, since social benefits from the construction of wind power is estimated as larger than social costs. Also, social compensation policy is necessary to heal the damages such as disturbance of ecosystem and transformation of landscape. Policy makers who determine the promotion plan of wind power should decide location of wind farm within the extend of minimizing the negative impacts. |
