Stakeholder Management in Wind Power Projects

Introduction

Because of its environmental friendliness and economic feasibility, the worldwide number of wind farms has been increasing for several years now. Although wind energy is a mature technique for producing green energy, every particular construction project is a complex undertaking with special needs regarding planning and execution to assure its continued spread and cost effectiveness. Due to its complexity, a wind power project involves a large number of different parties. Alongside with a high number of proponents of wind power, there are many opponents for different reasons as well. All of those have to be handled with individual sensitiveness in order Therefore they have to be involved during the whole construction process and have to be kept informed right from the beginning when the project idea was born. To guarantee taking the affected people into account, handling them the right way and ensuring their satisfaction about the wind farm during the whole development and construction process, this article not only describes the stakeholders which should be observed, but also how they have to be dealt with to ensure the project´s success. In consideration of the worldwide extension of wind energy and the growing of local resistance against such projects, focussing on an optimal stakeholder management is more essential then ever.

Wind Power Projects in General

From the general idea about building a wind farm to its completion and the start of its operation, it takes up to several years. Thus, there are many possibilities for taking the wind out of the project´s sails and, as a consequence, causing delays during the development and construction process. For understandig the stakeholder management in wind power projects and to enable its placement in the whole lifecycle of a wind farm, figure 1 shows all the different steps from the initiation phase across its planning and design process to the actual constrction and the later starting operation of the wind park.

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