Dimensions of Social Acceptance in Energy Transition

Abstract

The European Union fixed medium and long-term targets to reduce GHG emissions up to 80–95% compared to 1990 levels by 2050. The governments’ ambitious goal to increase the share of renewable energy fosters technological innovation. Nevertheless, the innovation results could be jeopardized by the shortage of and the lack of local communities’ social acceptance towards renewable energy plants (REPs). The lack of social acceptance of REPs may be a significant barrier to success in energy transition policies. Therefore, it is paramount to analyze social acceptance dimensions to avoid energy policy implementation gaps. The present paper investigates in deep such dimensions concerning REPs to fill this gap. We first investigate the distinction between acceptance and acceptability definitions; then, we analyze the dimensions of social acceptance, i.e., socio-political acceptance, community acceptance, and market acceptance. We finally propose a new analytical framework to map social acceptance in concrete case studies empirically.