Assessing environmental impacts of photovoltaic farms in Portugal: a stated preference approach

• Autor(a) principal: Botelho, Anabela
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Gomes, Lina Sofia Matos Lourenço, Lígia, Pinto, Sousa, Sara, Valente, Marieta
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10348/10261
• topic: photovoltaic farms; stated preference methods; contingent valuation; discrete choice experiments; environmental impacts; public attitudes

Photovoltaic energy for electricity generation has developed considerably in recent years. In countries with high solar radiation indices, as in the case of Portugal, this energy source can be expected to play a significant role in the electricity production mix. The benefits of using this renewable energy source are undeniable, in particular in its contribution to reaching the European and Portuguese climate change goals. However, the operation and expansion of photovoltaic farms causes environmental impacts, which, unlike the benefits, only affect nearby local communities. Some of the environmental burdens that have been identified are: land use impacts, eventual reduction of farmable land, thermal pollution, fragmentation of the countryside, landscape intrusion, impacts on fauna and flora, glare effect, and electromagnetic interference. Given the asymmetry of the welfare effects expected from the construction of new photovoltaic farms, or extension of the existing ones, it is important to devise methodologies capable of integrating the welfare impacts on these two groups of stakeholders: the general population, who accrue the benefits, and local communities, who bear the costs. The main objective of this paper is to propose and test a novel approach to fully acknowledge these opposing interests and welfare impacts and thus overcome limitations in conventional analyses that fail to account for them. We propose to elicit local residents’ and general population’s welfare impacts from the presence of photovoltaic farms through the application of two stated preference methodologies, commonly used when valuing environmental goods and services: the contingent valuation method and discrete choice experiments. The former was applied to residents in the vicinity of selected photovoltaic farms installed in the region of Alentejo (Portugal): Hércules, Amareleja, and Ferreira do Alentejo. The latter method was applied among the general population. Our results show that local residents are encumbered by the presence of the photovoltaic farms, and demand significant amounts of compensation. In addition, members of the general population are willing to pay as compensation significant monetary amounts, which, attesting to the methodology’s validity, differ depending on the specific environmental impact considered. As a conclusion, this study underlines the importance of not only acknowledging, but also taking into full consideration (in economic terms) the equity implications of photovoltaic projects when deciding their construction and location.