Using collaborative virtual environments to plan wind energy installations

Abstract

Countries around the world are introducing requirements to significantly increase their proportion of energy from renewable sources, such as wind. Poor siting or poor decision process will produce considerable local opposition delaying implementation and costing both proponents and the concerned public significant time, effort and stress. We propose that collaborative virtual environments have the advantage of allowing multiple involved parties to play out multiple planning scenarios and gather instant feedback in the process - ultimately with the goal of both effective energy generation and maintenance of local amenity. We have built a case study at the real wind turbine site of the Challic..