Abstract
Wind turbines should generally be installed at a certain distance from a road to ensure passengers' safety. In Korea, there is no clear guidance as the Ministry of Environment first proposed a road setback distance of 400 m in the Onshore Wind Farm Siting Guidelines draft proposed in July 2012, and then modified it to 1.5 times the height of the wind turbine in October of the same year. This study analyzed the dynamic range of onshore wind resource potential according to how the road setback distance is set using the Korea Wind Atlas with 100m spatial resolution made by the Korea Institute of Energy Research, the transportation network of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, and the forest road network of the Korea Forestry Service. Owing to the geographical characteristics of Korea, where mountainous terrain accounts for 70% of the total territory, the wind resource potential within 1 km from forest roads are estimated to be 14.3 GW, 14% of Korea's total wind resource potential. In addition, the construction distance of new road for transporting wind turbines from the existing road to a wind farm site is estimated as less than 2 km. Given the limited wind resource potential and geographical constraints, an assessment system that can maximize wind resource utilization and ensure road safety at the same time, and which takes into account the regional characteristics instead of applying the fixed road setback distance across-the-road, is required.