Abstract
In recent years, the urgent necessity and tremendous opportunity to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon competitive economy has resulted in growth of long-term targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency, which are coming from policy bodies worldwide. The inherent distributed nature of renewable energies, together with the modularity of those technologies, brings opportunities for consumer empowerment in terms of participation. Nevertheless, there is still the need for increasing global awareness and enabling policies, to strengthen the citizen role in the energy system, facilitating their proactive participation as renewable energy purchasers, investors, and clean energy producers. Drawing from research interviews and the academic literature, this article conceptualizes the understanding of the need for improving public attitudes and explores the factors influencing the acceptance in terms of misconceptions, best communication practices, activities addressing public concerns, and potential actions to bolster public support towards renewable energy. Research interviews were conducted at a technical workshop on social acceptance of renewable energy, held in Abu Dhabi in October 2013, and the findings show that despite detecting an increasing trend towards greater and more active participation of citizens, many misconceptions together with insufficient and inefficient awareness and communication initiatives on renewable energies persist. The main conclusions can be used as a basis for formulating sustainable energy communication and awareness campaigns in order to enhance public acceptance and increase active participation in renewable energy technologies.
Highlights
The promotion of low carbon energy technologies to palliate anthropogenic effects in climate is a central task for governments worldwide [1,2,3], which is considered the most efficient path to assure a reliable, sustainable, and efficient future energy system [4]
While there is intense discussion on the needed presence of these elements in policy, less attention was given, comparatively, to the technological issues. This fault traditionally leads to a low level of awareness and misconceptions about renewable energy technologies, which were consistently identified as the main important barriers to promote active citizen participation in the large-scale deployment of renewable energies [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17] and it is considered a hurdle for the diffusion of renewable innovations
The questionnaire was answered by the attendees at the workshop, where representatives of institutions such as Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), Greenpeace, Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), and European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA), among others, were present
Summary
The promotion of low carbon energy technologies to palliate anthropogenic effects in climate is a central task for governments worldwide [1,2,3], which is considered the most efficient path to assure a reliable, sustainable, and efficient future energy system [4]. While there is intense discussion on the needed presence of these elements in policy, less attention was given, comparatively, to the technological issues This fault traditionally leads to a low level of awareness and misconceptions about renewable energy technologies, which were consistently identified as the main important barriers to promote active citizen participation in the large-scale deployment of renewable energies [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17] and it is considered a hurdle for the diffusion of renewable innovations. Individuals, businesses, communities and nations need to be more aware of the energy they use and try to save energy wherever possible [25]
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