Costs and Benefits of Onshore Wind Farms in Scotland: Report to the Expert Group on Environmental Studies 2012:5

This report is concerned with the application of cost-benefit
analysis to issues of renewable energy development. We focus on
experience in Scotland, a country which has experienced very rapid
increases in new renewables capacity in recent years, and which has
set world-leading targets for renewable energy as part of climate
change and economic development policies. The effects of policy
instruments used to incentivise renewable energy are outlined, and
information on the wider economic consequences of renewables
expansion is presented. The report explains how the environmental impacts (positive and negative) of renewable energy can be included within a cost-benefit analysis, and provides examples of studies which have estimated this environmental costs and benefits in monetary terms. Additional non-economic information is also reported on social and political costs and benefits that have
occurred from the promotion of renewable energy. From this review of the Scottish experience with promoting renewables and wind farms in particular several lessons or recommendations can be learned by Sweden as they pursue similar renewable energy developments.