Regionally oriented project planning and operation of the turbines can make a large part of the total costs of a wind farm usable for the region and the local communities, thus making an important contribution to the acceptance of the projects. A key finding of our 2016 study "Regional value creation in the wind industry using the example of North Hesse", was that it makes a big difference for regional value creation how the wind farm is projected and operated (cf. Gottschalk et al. 2016). On behalf of the cdw Foundation, these results have now been updated in a short study. For this purpose, the data of a wind farm in northern Hesse from the 2016 study were adjusted to the current cost situation and the capacity of the wind farm was increased from 21 MW to 49 MW (7 x 7 MW) by repowering.

Even in the updated cost structure of a wind farm with greatly increased capacity, it is possible to capitalize about 55% of the total costs for the region. If the areas for wind farms were in municipal hands, approx. 80 % of the total costs could be anchored regionally. With the external variant, on the other hand, only 13 % of the costs can be kept in the region. This results in the task of ensuring regionally oriented project planning and regionally oriented operation of the wind farms when allocating land. A long-term commitment of the regional investors and operators is crucial so that as high a share of the revenues as possible can flow back into other regional projects in the energy industry, public services or regional consumption.

Regional value creation in the wind industry using the example of North Hesse II