NCSU Studies Offshore Wind’s Impact on Tourism

Wind turbines that could be spinning off the coast of North Carolina in the future would affect the state’s tourism, despite the fact that people generally support wind energy as a clean source of power.

According to a study by economists at North Carolina State University (NCSU), nearshore wind farms are likely to negatively impact coastal tourism. Namely, the study has found that most people are unwilling to rent vacation homes that have a view of offshore wind turbines – and that those who will rent expect steep rental discounts unless the turbines are more than eight miles offshore.

Laura Taylor, author of a working paper on the study and director of NC State’s Center for Environmental and Resource Economic Policy, said: “There was a lot of support for wind energy, but no one was willing to pay more to see wind turbines from the beach by their vacation rental property. And if turbines are built close to shore, most people said they would choose a different vacation location where they wouldn’t have to see turbines.

“However, the good news is that our results also show that if turbines are built further than eight miles from shore, the visual impacts diminish substantially for many survey respondents and it is unlikely the turbines would negatively impact coastal vacation property markets.”

Taylor and her fellow researchers, former NC State Ph.D. student Sanja Lutzeyer and Daniel Phaneuf, a former faculty member at NC State now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, surveyed 484 people who had recently rented homes on the North Carolina coast in areas where the state has offshore leases available for wind farm development.

To find out, Taylor and coauthors surveyed people who had just rented a vacation property along the N.C. coast. As part of the survey, respondents were asked whether or not they would re-rent their vacation property if the view over the ocean included wind turbines.  Respondents were shown digitally altered photos that included either 64, 100 or 144 turbines placed 5, 8, 12, or 18 miles out to sea.

The results showed that study participants were split into three groups.

Fifty-four per cent said they would not rent a vacation home if turbines were in view at all, no matter how large a discount was offered on the rental price. Twenty per cent would be willing to rent homes if turbines were 8 miles or closer to shore, but only if there was a discount – and the closer the turbines were to shore, the steeper the discount needed to be. The remaining 26 per cent of participants would require rental discounts if wind farms were as far as 12 miles offshore – and the discounts they needed if turbines were closer than 12 miles were so high as to be completely unrealistic, the study has shown.

“We were somewhat surprised about the strong dislike for viewing turbines from their vacation rental properties, especially given the large majority of respondents said they supported wind energy development,” Taylor said. Specifically, 65% of respondents thought offshore wind energy should be encouraged in NC waters after completing the survey, while only 14% thought it should be discouraged. The remaining 21% were unsure or had no opinion.

The researchers estimated, using available data, that moving a wind farm from 5 miles to 10 miles offshore would increase construction costs by $ 5 million. “This suggests that the benefits to the rental community would outweigh the costs to the wind farm industry of moving the turbines further offshore,” Taylor said.

“The good news for North Carolina is that, at present, the state has removed all but one of the potential wind farm sites that are less than 12 miles from shore,” Taylor said. “But that could change.”

She added that the findings are also relevant to other regions, especially along the Atlantic coast.