Offsetting schemes and ecological taxes for wind power production
本文建立理论模型，比较了生态税、强制抵消市场以及两者结合对陆上风电开发的调控效果，发现结合方案能降低环境成本并增加风电产量，但需先建立高质量测量和严格监管。
On the one hand, wind power production on land seems necessary for decarbonizing the electricity sector. On the other hand, we risk replacing one environmental problem with other environmental problems. The present paper provides a novel contribution to the literature on how to regulate the development of wind power plants on land (WPPs). Current regulation is largely based on a concession system, where both ecological taxes and offset schemes are left unexplored. We develop a theoretical model of WPP development with offsets and ecological taxes. We show that if additional loss of pristine nature and biodiversity is acceptable at some monetary price, establishing an offset market for WPP development and combining it with an ecological tax will be socially desirable. In fact, this solution is preferable to both only having an ecological tax or only having a compulsory offset market. Compared to only an ecological tax, it leads to lower environmental costs and more electricity from wind power production. By looking at a WPP project and two restoration cases, we demonstrate how an offset scheme could be conducted and conclude that offsetting WPPs could be possible. However, since wind power, to our knowledge, never have been exposed to an offsetting scheme, high quality measurement methods and thorough regulations must first be in place to ensure equivalence in the values of ecosystem services lost and gained.