Building Local Acceptance of Renewable Energy Development in Europe.

I had the pleasure of attending the 'Achieving a Win-Win(d): Socially-Inclusive Wind Energy across Europe' conference in Berlin last week, where the discussion of socially inclusive wind energy development centred on building local community acceptance. Wind energy amongst other renewable energy forms plays a major role in Europe's climate objectives and energy transition strategy. With the density of onshore wind energy development increasing in central Europe, and foreign developers actively investing in projects, achieving local community acceptance even for renewable energy projects is becoming a more complex negotiation between stakeholders. The challenges facing future wind energy can be extended to other types of renewable energy development.

A couple conference themes that I have been thinking about are summarized below:

The Creation of Energy Communities

Promoting the creation of 'Energy Communities,' whereby local communities directly or indirectly participate in energy development, will enhance the progress of renewables across Europe. The challenge however, becomes the means of participation. Many communities are financially challenged to participate in energy projects, due to the inherent capital requirements and project development risks. Furthermore, renewable energy projects have a tendency to create fewer longer-term local jobs post project commissioning, as compared to hydrocarbon and coal development for example, thus mitigating the creation of local energy based service economies.

Policy makers, developers and community representatives must focus on flexible and diverse ways of achieving local acceptance for future energy development, while providing access to capital for participation. Project design must allow for local economic benefits to be realized, inclusive of direct job creation or financial participation in the form of equity or taxes, linked directly to the community. In addition, education and transparency of the local benefits provided by projects will bolster acceptance, creating community pride and sense of ownership. The public should be able to recognize the use of renewable energies locally.

Support is Passive - Opponents are More Willing to Become Active

Anyone can observe that opponents tend to get the most attention by the press - why is this? Studies show that opponents are more willing to become active, relative to supporters of a cause. This trend can result in an overestimation of opponents relative to supporters in the planning and stakeholder engagement process.

There exist a large number of passive, or silent supporters, for renewable energy development. When asked, these individuals who are pro-development confirm they are often less willing to voice this opinion, or take to the streets for the cause. Energy development strategy must account for the passive support, and focus on bringing their voice to the forefront. These passive supporters can be influenced into becoming active pro-renewable participants. Projects reflecting uncontested majority support will certainly build momentum through the engagement and planning phase, and directly achieve higher levels of community acceptance pre and post development.

There is no Single Solution

As a result of the vast difference across Europe, whether it be due to development setback guidelines, varying feed-in tariffs and auction processes, the phase out of renewable energy subsidies, and the sheer quantity of national and state territories, it's not possible to create a homogeneous policy and business environment. There is however, an incredible resilience on behalf of stakeholders across Europe, to make renewable energy development work, both locally and across borders. There are successful examples of where communities and developers have come together to balance interests, as a direct result of flexible guidance provided by regulators and policy developers. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein for example is a front-runner in the promotion and acceptance renewable energy development; a model others can certainly consider as an analogy. Think tanks and energy agencies have popped up and grown to provide valuable insights and knowledge share, to facilitate renewable energy development in a global context.

To conclude, the hyper competitive pace of renewable energy development in Europe is staggering. Growing pains are to be expected, but only proactive sustainable developments, with clear local benefit will stand to gain the greater acceptance. Developers and stakeholders must account for this local acceptance, not as a 'cost of doing business,' but rather an incentive yielding a socio-sustainable forward business model.