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Berkeley Lab research reveals how trade engages with vitality host communities when growing giant wind and photo voltaic initiatives.
The growing deployment of utility-scale wind and photo voltaic vitality throughout the US highlights debates in regards to the applicable position for the general public in siting and allowing choices. Essential to those discussions is a radical understanding of the present engagement practices and views of photo voltaic and wind undertaking builders. This research gives essential insights into present trade practices, builders’ preferences for group enter, and potential challenges related to engagement.
The research, printed in Vitality Analysis and Social Science in an open-access format, is out there right here: https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/halfway-ladder-developer-practices.
The authors will host a webinar protecting the research outcomes on August 29, 2024, at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET. Register right here: https://lbnl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vNVHmIK2QFi6_I19TmSwVA
Drawing on the responses of 123 professionals from 62 distinctive improvement firms, key takeaways from this research are:
- Builders report growing challenges to group engagement, comparable to organized opposition, the unfold of misinformation, excessive prices, and lack of proof about which methods to handle opposition are the simplest.
- Builders generally use quite a lot of engagement methods, together with adjusting undertaking designs and negotiating compensation, in response to this group suggestions, which supply examples of doubtless productive methods communities and builders can co-design some elements of initiatives. Group possession, which is usually cited as an efficient strategy to interact group members, isn’t employed for these large-scale initiatives.
- The general public is mostly not notified of undertaking proposals till after web site management, when the land for the undertaking has already been secured by means of lease or buy, which limits the quantity of undertaking modifications which can be attainable in response to group suggestions.
- Business expenditures on group engagement are small compared to different undertaking improvement prices, usually representing lower than 0.1% of common whole capital expenditures, pointing to a possible alternative to extend efforts with out considerably affecting undertaking prices.
- Builders desire that the general public present enter into siting choices, however not suggest particular undertaking choices nor straight make undertaking choices, that means collaborative relationships with communities may take builders out of their consolation zones.
Advocates for procedural justice within the vitality transition sometimes envision larger ranges of citizen involvement in determination making than is exhibited by these present tendencies, demonstrating a necessity for larger dialogue throughout various kinds of stakeholders to make suggestions or formulate greatest practices about significant public engagement. The main focus of this research is proscribed to the views of undertaking builders, however extra analysis is underway to look at the viewpoints of different stakeholders comparable to undertaking neighbors and allowing officers.
Further data and outcomes from this survey have been beforehand printed and accessible at: https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/survey-utility-scale-wind-and-solar.
We thank the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Wind Vitality Applied sciences Workplace for his or her assist of this work and the quite a few people and organizations who generously offered knowledge and reviewed our research.
We thank the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Wind Vitality Applied sciences Workplace for his or her assist of this work and the quite a few people and organizations who generously offered knowledge and reviewed our research.
The Vitality Markets and Coverage Division at Berkeley Lab conducts technical, financial, and coverage analyses of vitality subjects centered on the U.S. electrical energy sector.
Courtesy of Robi Nilson, Joe Rand, Ben Hoen, and Salma Elmallah, Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory
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