A matter of acceptability? Understanding citizen investment schemes in the context of onshore wind farm development

Abstract

Governments have set ambitious targets for low-carbon electricity, supported by policies that aim at accelerating the expansion of renewables like onshore wind energy. In-step with these developments it is acknowledged that community acceptance is an important factor. One measure deemed increasingly important for community acceptance is to encourage joint investments between local communities and wind farm developers. Through a literature review this study considers the synergies and mismatches of joint investments from residents, here referred as citizen investments, into developer-led wind farms. The practice of citizen investment into commercial wind developments is relatively novel but is becoming more relevant under policies which promote citizen involvement in renewable energy, such as the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive. This study conceptualizes citizen investment in the context of community acceptance to understand how it translates into eligibility criteria in different political and academic settings. This study finds that citizen investment has a positive relationship with community acceptance, but the link is conditional rather than automatic. This study sees the need to further elaborate on the nature of the relationship and highlights opportunities to bring together a variety of methodological, temporal and geographic approaches and theoretical concepts, considering the eligibility criteria and the trade-off between risks of citizen investments and control of projects.