AbstractsEarth & Environmental Science

The biggest environmental challenge that has to be addressed is climate change. From an environmental perspective, the use of renewable energy and wind power deployment are a positive choice to curb it and also are promoted by many governments. General public usually expresses a positive attitude towards wind power, but sometimes local population reject wind power projects. In this project, interviews to key figures in the wind power sector were conducted to assess human perception and attitudes in Spain. For Sweden, data was obtained through a literature revision. The other parts of this project, which are wind energy status, history and future directions, legislation, and projects’ planning and permitting; were also analyzed and compared for both countries through a literature search. There is a great level of acceptance of wind power projects in both countries. Some impacts from wind power on humans are found: noise and shadows are the major impacts in Sweden, and visual impact in Spain. Several improvements to the approaches taken by these two countries have been proposed with the aim of promoting a further development of wind power. Governmental incentives to the deployment of wind power and other renewable energy sources must be re-adopted in Spain, where procedures should be standardized and public participation promoted. In Sweden, changes either in the energy sources used to produce energy or in the system should be included. More efforts have to be done to protect the environment, so wind power development should be a major asset to achieve these objectives.