Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy: Trends, Concepts, and Geographies

Abstract

AbstractAs global production of energy from renewable sources has grown over the last 25 years, so too has research on social acceptance of renewable energy. This article reports findings from a systematic review of peer‐reviewed articles related to this subject. There has been a rapid increase in the frequency of these studies and a shift in orientation away from market and socio‐political measures of securing policy support for renewables toward a sympathetic reporting of community opposition to wind turbines. Well‐developed conceptual and empirical critiques of the “Not‐in‐My‐Backyard” concept have emerged on the basis of Western European case studies, notably from the UK. Drawing from experiences across the globe with varied sizes and types of new energy infrastructure researchers have documented complex social responses that go beyond simplistic designations of opponent or supporter. Geographical concepts including place, landscape, distance decay, territory, and others have been gainfully employed in this interdisciplinary literature, and there is ample opportunity for greater contributions from the discipline to this area of growing popular and academic interest.