Social and political impacts of renewable energy: Literature review

Abstract

The social and political perspectives are important considerations for renewable energy technologies. These perspectives may have impacts that are positive, negative, or a combination. Positive impacts can improve the adoption of certain technologies. Adverse impacts can reduce the intended benefits or even threaten the viability of a technologically promising technology. Since societal and political impacts are typically tightly inter-related they are being considered together. A literature review was performed to determine the criteria that are elements of the social and political perspectives. The literature review was supplemented with a review by experts to capture any additional criteria that were not specifically mentioned. The results are presented in this paper as taxonomy of criteria and sub-criteria for these perspectives. Over sixty criteria and sub-criteria are identified for the social and political perspectives. The perspectives and their criteria are important for decision making by policy makers, electric utilities, technology manufacturers, and research institutes. Having comprehensive sets of criteria can assist decision makers in ensuring that important aspects and impacts of the social and political perspectives are given due consideration and are not inadvertently omitted.