The perplexed technical governance of wind turbines in Greek Islands

Abstract

There are several types of restrictions applied on the implementation of wind energy in islands. Technical, economical and land planning aspects are the most important and are discussed in this chapter. Electricity produced by wind energy is competitive against conventional power production in sites with high wind potential, but wind penetration is restricted due to technical constraints imposed to autonomous electrical systems for reasons of safe operation. On the other hand, hybrid solutions which combine wind energy with pumped storage systems may be applied in few cases for further wind energy penetration, but this solution is considered as a rather expensive one and requires large scale civil works for the topology of the reservoirs and huge water quantities for initial fill. Although these solutions could be competitive against the current high electricity production cost and reduce the energy dependence, they lead to wind energy resource exploitation only for partial local supply. In several islands, there is abundant wind potential which could be only exploited and transported to the mainland through the development of large scale wind farms and underwater interconnections to decrease national energy dependence and contribute to the achievement of national goals for renewable energy supply. In all these cases, land planning issues associated with other land uses and protected areas set additional constraints to wind energy development. © Springer-Verlag London 2013.