Greening of Greek Islands: Community Wind Approach at Skyros Island

Abstract

On account of the spreading unease regarding environmental issues such as climate change, many governments are subsidizing sustainable cities or smart eco-cities as a matter of policy. To attain a sustainable energy supply, solar and wind energy will likely provide the main renewable contributions to the developing requirements. As energy is one of the principal and primal imposing challenges confronting the society today, European countries, like Greece, have made higher pledges to affiliate larger share of renewable energy in their portfolio of energy sources, in order to countenance wider sustainable development and diminish their greenhouse gas emissions as well. Communities often show, adequate to mighty, supportive attitudes to the pursuance of renewable energy. Notwithstanding that the public customarily possesses positive attitudes towards wind energy, proposals for the installation of new wind farms are regularly met with potent rebuff. Greening Greek Cities is a considerable environmental challenge for policy makers, as they have to pursue urban development through initiatives that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase resource efficiency, while they are called to steer their economies out of the financial crisis. Greening Greek Islands could play a significant role in sustainability implementation as a strategy in Greece. The aim of the present paper is to examine how the attitudes to wind energy of the inhabitants of an Aegean island, could be affected by the community ownership of the wind. The Island of Skyros was chosen as the region where a giant wind farm investment was being proposed to occur, but after the opposition of the inhabitants the installation was postponed. Also, this survey assesses whether or not the community wind power increases residents’ acceptance in small-scale wind farms, as a solution to the island’s energy sufficiency and the broadly encouragement of sustainability. The attitudes and opinions of locals as well as their perception on politics, sustainable policy and energy policies’ issues are being analyzed.