Evaluating the South Korean public perceptions and acceptance of offshore wind farming: evidence from a choice experiment study

ABSTRACT

The South Korean government is attempting to expand the capacity of offshore wind farming (OWF) from 1.2GW in 2017 to 16.5GW in 2030. Accordingly, the environmental impacts of OWF have become a social issue, and the government needs information about the public acceptance of OWF. This paper seeks to evaluate the public acceptance of OWF in South Korea through a choice experiment (CE). The five attributes chosen are the distance from land to the offshore wind farm (Distance), the number of generators in the offshore wind farm (Number), the height of the generators to be seen above sea level (Height), a decrease in marine life (Life), and the location of the offshore wind farm (Location). The price attribute is an increase in yearly household income tax. A mixed logit model is applied to estimating a utility function from the gathered CE data. All the coefficients for the attributes in the utility are estimated with statistical significance. The sign of the coefficient for Distance is positive, but the signs of all other coefficients are negative. The results of estimating the utility function can be useful in evaluating the environmental impacts of an OWF project from a monetary standpoint.

KEYWORDS:

• Offshore wind farm
• environmental impact
• choice experiment
• willingness to pay
• mixed logit model

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q42
• Q51
• Q58

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was a part of the project titled ‘Marine ecosystem-based analysis and decision-making support system development for marine spatial planning’, funded by the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries [Grant number 20170325]. Moreover, this work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea [Grant number 20184030202230].