User:Kittodk/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Community wind energy - Wikipedia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I have lots of academic experience researching wind farms, such as an extensive policy process analysis on current wind farm projects in Washington and sustainability projects with Orsted on the coast of Taiwan. Community wind energy stuck out to me as many of the issues people have with wind farm companies initiating a project is that local residents don't have a real stake in the decision-making process, profitable outcomes, or environmental alterations that occur during and after implementation. Community wind power seems like a good way to address equity issues, limit environmental harm, boost local economies, encourage outside investment, and, most importantly, create sustainable energy.

Evaluate the article
The lead section for this article is concise and easy for the reader to digest, even if they are new to the topic of renewable energies or community cooperatives. There is no breakdown of the articles sections in the introduction, and it jumps the reader straight into different examples of community wind energy by country. Some further background of the topic could be included to enhance the context before providing examples. Overall, there is a decent amount of information in this article. Breaking down examples by country is a good way of highlighting the differences between regions and how little this practice is being utilized globally. There are also breakdowns of the business models used by the cooperatives, the impacts of community wind energy, and some policy/legislation issues. With these breakdowns however there is a fragmentation of place and relevance. For example, the policy/legislation section only discusses U.S.-based issues, which does not align with the first half of the article, where multiple countries are covered. This is a point where the organization can be improved. Adjusting where the sections are placed relevant to which country is being written about would help the reader track the important information and avoid incorrect conclusions on the subject. The article also lacks some visual aids; only a few images reference specific locations related to the article's content. Along with improving organization and images, the sources are all dated between 2009 and 2015. They are credible and reliable sources. However, I am curious if any further coverage has been done on the subject, which could enhance the article's credibility and overall content. Something that surprised me on this article is how I have never heard of the subject before, since I have high exposure to this field it makes me wonder if this community model for wind energy resulted in failure or if interests aligned to snuff out further support. I found that it piqued my curiosity.