Vindkraftens utveckling i Sverige: Ett vinande koncept

Abstract

Wind power is considered to be an important renewable energy source in the transition into a fossil free economy to mitigate climate change. Motivated by its commitments in the Paris Agreement, Sweden has national goals for an expansion of wind power by 100 TWh by the year 2040. The aim of this thesis is to investigate what factors drive the wind power deployment on a municipal level. By using panel data for the years 2009–2020 and the econometric models Probit and Tobit, we investigate the effects of several physical and socio-economic factors on the wind power deployment. The main findings from the Probit model are that having national areas of interest for wind power production, or being a coastal or mountainous municipality, affect the probability of deployment positively, while average income and left-green political ideology affect it negatively. The same relationships are found for the Tobit model, except that political ideology turns out to be statistically insignificant. We draw on a relatively new theory about the tragedy of the anti-commons and discuss the different rights to exclude wind power deployment by citizens, municipalities and authorities, that can be related to this concept. A cost-effective expansion of wind power is of socio-economic interest and possible policy measures discussed are a rationalisation of the process for wind power applications and the system for green electricity certificates.