Onshore wind power is now one of the cheapest sources of renewable electricity in the world, but despite being a mature and clean energy technology it has also been the subject of local conflicts. While some countries have seen strong growth in wind power, the diffusion has been slowed down significantly by social acceptance issues in many countries, such as the Netherlands, France, the UK and Switzerland. The environmental justice literature suggests that social acceptance of renewable energy can be increased by respecting procedural justice (fair, participatory planning processes) and distributional justice (fairly allocating costs and benefits). However, empirical evidence about how justice considerations are related to the expansion of wind power is scarce. To close this gap, we conducted a choice experiment, jointly testing the influence of procedural and distributional justice in combination with other factors such as environmental impacts, location and ownership.
www.iwoe.unisg.ch/ostwind; Befragung der Anwohner von möglichen Windparks in der Ostschweiz