Where onshore wind meets forests: electricity system planning with ecologically graded forests

Abstract

Onshore wind is expected to supply much of the growth in renewables, yet its expansion increasingly extends into forests, where wind generation and forest conservation act as competing climate strategies for the same land. Net-zero system assessments typically treat forests homogeneously. Here, we grade forest exclusions by ecological value and couple them with a high-resolution net-zero electricity system model, representing onshore wind on forested and non-forested land as two distinct technologies. Applying a set of ecologically graded scenarios to Norway, we quantify how forest protection by its ecological value reshapes system design, the balance of onshore wind within and outside forests, and the robustness of these outcomes to complementary energy policy levers. At equal cost, the system treats forest as its preferred onshore resource, with forest wind comprising 60 to 90 percent of onshore capacity under permissive scenarios. Excluding forest raises system cost by up to 0.5 percent per GW of foregone forest wind, with diminishing returns as ecological criteria for forest exclusions tighten. Directing wind into forests does not compromise system efficiency, with onshore curtailment remaining largely unchanged at 3 to 8 percent. Land-use and technology decisions that appear independent may, in fact, interact, as solar deployment reshapes the value of each wind resource and determines which is displaced from the generation mix. By quantifying the ecological value forgone per unit of forest onshore wind, this study makes explicit a trade-off that energy system modelling usually leaves implicit, providing a transferable basis for balancing the competing climate strategies of protecting forests and sustaining wind expansion.