麻豆传媒

There is enough land available in Europe for millions of wind turbines that could power the entire world, an analysis has found.

While the falling price and rapid deployment of offshore windfarms has captured attention in recent years, windfarms on land make up the bulk of Europe鈥檚 installed wind power and are much cheaper. Building far more of them is still seen as key for meeting the EU鈥檚 long-term climate targets.

Luckily, there appears to be plenty of room. An international team found 4.9 million square kilometres, or 46 per cent of European land, could have windfarms built on. The remainder was considered off-limits because of regulated distances from homes and infrastructure, protected landscapes, inappropriate terrain such as mountains, plus other restrictions

The available space could host 11.6 million wind turbines, which would have a capacity of 52.5 terawatts. That is聽. Such scale would supply more than a hundred times the electricity that Europe鈥檚 windfarms do today, or enough to meet the world鈥檚 entire electricity needs in 2050. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a massive number. It鈥檚 way larger than studies in the past,鈥� says Peter Enevoldsen at Aarhus University in Denmark.

One reason for the greater potential is that turbines have got more powerful. Enevoldsen and colleagues assumed an up-to-date wind turbine with 4.5MW capacity, rather than the 2-3MW assumed by older research. It also turns out developers are building turbines much closer together than was commonly assumed.

To map Europe鈥檚 wind power potential, data was overlaid from the European Copernicus satellite programme, OpenStreetMap and wind speed atlases, factoring in rules from national and regional databases on how close turbines could be built from buildings and infrastructure. The researchers say the mapping is more detailed than earlier efforts. 鈥淟uckily it turns out being more precise allows more wind turbines,鈥� says Enevoldsen.

The biggest potential new wind power capacity was found to be in non-EU states, including Russia, Turkey and Norway. The UK and Ireland are seen as having 81,648 square kilometres of land for turbines, which could host a capacity of almost 1TW of the overall roughly 53TW.

In reality, only a small fraction of the total European potential will likely be realised. Turbines won鈥檛 be built everywhere they possibly could be because of land ownership issues, public opposition and economics. The analysis also contrasts with real world hiccoughs, such as planning issues in Germany which .

鈥淎ll these potentials take little notice of people, whether people will accept them and聽invest in them. In the end, support from local authorities and central government really sets the tone,鈥� says Catherine Mitchell of Exeter University, who was not involved in the research.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we鈥檒l install all 52.5TW,鈥� says Enevoldsen. 鈥淭he important point is it鈥檚 doable, if not to meet the world鈥檚 demand, then at least meet Europe鈥檚 demand for electricity.鈥� Fellow researcher Benjamin Sovacool of the University of Sussex says the study is not a blueprint for development but a guide for policymakers on the technology鈥檚 potential.