Sustainable energy competes with landscape resources

In many densely populated areas different types of land use, including electricity production, compete directly for little available space. Here, the production of renewable electricity often collides with provisioning, regulating and cultural services of the landscape. In this paper we operationalize the landscape service approach and generate conflict maps between three renewable energies (wind; PV; forest biomass) and six competing landscape services. We then applied an optimisation tool (Marxan) to evaluate, assess, and quantify the trade-offs between ES provisioning and wind electricity production. Expressing different ES in comparable units and evaluating the costs to the system when these are lost versus the benefits gained from wind electricity production generated an output of possible solutions. When compared to similar studies modelling wind electricity output that avoid negative interaction with ES, the current results using the optimisation tool Marxan suggest a solution requiring 13.5% fewer turbines in order to produce the same amount of energy. Thus, using optimisation software can lead to more efficient spatial planning solutions. Our methodology can be applied toward cost-effective renewable energy development that minimises opportunity cost in terms of foregone ES provisioning.