Valuing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Wind Power

Abstract

This study concludes that much can be gained from harmonisation of historic life cycle estimates and moving towards a standard approach for carbon assessment of given technologies should be seen as an industry imperative. Wind power estimates lying within the interquartile range of meta-analyses such as presented in this paper and elsewhere should be considered to be reliable. However, the effects of wind generation intermittency on the carbon efficiency of thermal generation plant elsewhere in a supply network is not fully quantified and must be investigated to improve our knowledge of the overall carbon emissions produced by the deployment of wind generation plant.