Citizens’ Versus Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Renewable Electricity: What the Literature Tells Us in a Contingent Valuation Framework

Abstract

In dealing with renewable electricity (RE), individuals are involved both as end consumers on the demand side and as stakeholders (citizens) in the local production process on the supply side. Empirical evidence shows that in many countries, consumers are willing to pay a significant amount to facilitate adoption of RE. In contrast, environmental externalities are often the cause of strong opposition to RE adoption if local communities are involved as stakeholders in wind, solar, or biomass investment projects. Looking at the literature on willingness to pay and on willingness to accept, we have investigated RE acceptance mechanisms. In this chapter, we use a meta-analysis to assess the major determinants of RE acceptance on both the demand and supply sides. This meta-analysis has provided some insights that are useful for managing field research on an onshore wind farm enlargement project located in the Umbria region of Italy. The meta-analysis and survey results confirm that the local community plays a central role in local RE acceptance. Furthermore, people who have previous experience of windmills require less compensation, or are willing to pay more, for RE development. The results suggest that these attributes should be included in future research to improve understanding of determinants of RE acceptance.