Wind energy is anticipated to become a backbone of the future energy system. Ageing wind turbine fleets, increasing land-use constraints and rising relevance of societal factors make the deployment of land-based (onshore) wind energy ever more complicated. Consequently, repowering is expected to become a rapidly growing point of focus for the wind industry. Here we propose a more holistic and socially informed project-level approach to analyse repowering activity that enables a more robust understanding of the process and potentials. We demonstrate that for wind pioneer in Denmark, only 67% of the capacity removed in repowering projects was related to the physical space needed for a new turbine. Other factors that drive repowering include regulation (for example, noise-related, 8–17%), development principles (for example, aesthetics, 7–20%) and political bargaining (4–13%). The recognition of repowering as a negotiated process between host communities and wind developers will probably be critical to unlock the full potential of wind energy in the future.

预计风能将成为未来能源系统的骨干。风力涡轮机机群老化，土地使用限制日益增加以及社会因素的相关性不断提高，使得陆基（陆上）风能的部署变得更加复杂。因此，重新装机有望成为风电行业关注的快速增长点。在这里，我们提出了一种更全面，更具社会影响力的项目级方法来分析重新启动活动，从而使人们能够对过程和潜力有更深入的了解。我们证明，对于丹麦的风力先驱者来说，在重新供电项目中删除的容量中只有67％与新涡轮机所需的物理空间有关。其他推动动力的因素包括法规（例如与噪声有关的8-17％），发展原则（例如美学，7–20％）和政治谈判（4–13％）。在东道主社区和风能开发商之间通过谈判来确定加电能力可能对于将来释放风能的全部潜力至关重要。