Renewable energy plays an important role in the transition to a low emission society, yet in many regions energy projects have resulted in increasing societal polarization. Based on a comprehensive literature review and a survey among stakeholders from specific regions in Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain with little prior experience with wind energy, we highlight six categories of factors that shape community acceptance of onshore wind energy development: technical characteristics of wind energy projects, environmental impacts, economic impacts, societal impacts, contextual factors and individual characteristics. We identify key similarities in acceptance-related patterns of wind energy development across the selected regions, but also important differences, highlighting the very context-specific nature of community acceptance. The findings contribute to improving the understanding of the forces, factors and relationships at play between policy frameworks and perceptions of wind energy under different conditions. We conclude by proposing policy recommendations regarding measures to increase the positive impacts and reduce the negative impacts of wind energy projects, and to strengthen existing drivers and reduce barriers to community acceptance of wind energy development.

The present article deals with two key drivers of social acceptance of wind energy: procedural justice and distributional justice. It is based on a comparative expert assessment carried out in the frame of the Horizon 2020 project WinWind covering six European countries. The focus of the paper is on procedural and financial participation of citizens and local stakeholders in wind energy projects. The first part covers institutional arrangements for public engagement in two areas of the decision-making process—wind turbine zoning/siting in spatial plans and authorization procedures. Here, three levels of public involvement—information, consultation and participation—were analyzed. The second part examines active and financial participation of citizens and local stakeholders. Here, we distinguish between two different modes of governance: institutionalized forms of public governance and voluntary forms of corporate governance. The outcomes suggest that concrete paths to the social acceptance of wind energy are fostered via appropriate institutional spaces for public engagement. Furthermore, missing opportunities for active and passive financial participation can have strong negative consequences for community acceptance

Empirical evidence has shown that local community opposition is one of the key obstacles for new wind energy development. Consequently, the community acceptance of renewables, such as wind energy, has become a crux for Europe in both achieving and going beyond its renewable energy targets. Significant academic literature has already been devoted to conceptualising the community acceptance of wind energy. This article builds on the existing research by showcasing how regions and municipalities across Europe have successfully and effectively been able to overcome barriers to community acceptance. In doing so, 10 best practice case studies across six European countries have been carefully identified and investigated. The results of individual assessment of these different cases, each of which employ different types of measures/approaches, are comparatively analysed in order to identify the key success factors (drivers) for achieving community acceptance of wind energy in Europe. The identification of the success factors serves to start paving the way for the transfer of these measures/approaches to other municipalities and regions across Europe, particularly those who may encounter similar barriers of community acceptance of wind energy. Thus, our findings deliver to policy makers and developers a number of lessons learnt on how to organise future actions by proposing ways their activities can enhance community acceptance.

By 30 June 2021, EU Member States were expected to transpose the recast Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) which includes provisions for renewable energy communities (RECs) and to develop an enabling framework to promote the development of RECs. Although there is a growing number of studies analysing the emergence of various forms of community energy, comparative studies investigating the transposition and creation of enabling frameworks for RECs in a multi-level governance (MLG) perspective are scarce. This article examines the transposition in Germany and Italy and compares elements of the respective enabling frameworks. Key methods include context and MLG analysis combined with methods of descriptive (legal) studies. Insights and participatory observations of the stakeholder desks established in the Horizon2020 project COME RES complement the spectrum of methods deployed. Although community energy development is more advanced in Germany, the transposition of the RED II provisions has been slow and piecemeal so far. Conversely, in Italy, RED II played a catalyst role; the transposition has been rather dynamic and encouraged a continuous growth of REC initiatives. Nevertheless, a widespread uptake of RECs requires structural adjustments of the governance system in both countries and attention to MLG as well as vertical policy coordination.

This paper focuses on the sustainable use of solid and gaseous biomass for electricity, heating and cooling. It provides updated findings of policy analyses and corporate strategy analyses performed in the frame of BIOENERGY PROMOTION, one of the flagship projects under the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. In particular, the paper highlights policies and measures which have been adopted by the EU and EU Member States to address environmental and social sustainability risks of bioenergy. Taking into account the conclusions of BIOENERGY PROMOTION, the paper identifies promising policy developments, but also shortcomings. On the Member State level, the paper refers to the examples of Germany and Poland. It illustrates how problematic policy priorities and policy malfunctioning in two sub-sectors (biogas from energy crops in Germany, biomass co-firing in Poland) led to undesirable environmental and social developments and how policies have been re-adjusted to mitigate sustainability risks. The paper also portrays a number of voluntary corporate sustainability initiatives which emerged due to the lack of a binding European sustainability framework for solid and gaseous biomass. The authors conclude that without a binding sustainability framework at EU level there is a risk of having a patchwork of potentially diverging sustainability regimes and initiatives across Europe causing market intransparency and insecurity for investors.

This paper discusses the framework conditions to promote the socially inclusive and environmentally sound uptake of renewable energy with a special focus on wind power in Germany and on the policy framework of the European Union (EU). The analysis of these aspects relates to the achievement of one of the Sustainable Development Goals, namely SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy). Wind power plays an important role for mastering the energy transition, but in many countries of the EU, wind energy has become a subject of contested debates. Besides geographic, market, policy, and other factors which affect the implementation of wind energy projects, low levels of market deployment can also be attributed to a diminishing social acceptance and growing local opposition. This is mostly due to the visual impact, noise annoyance, public perception of health risks, local environmental disruption harming local fauna and flora, potentially negative impact on recreation and tourism, or land and real property values as well as to perceived procedural or distributional injustice including affordability of electricity prices, and insufficient public participation. The paper provides insights from an ongoing research project supported by the European Commission under the research programme Horizon 2020. The WinWind Project identifies similarities and differences between regions in five EU countries and in Norway highlighting barriers and drivers for the uptake of wind energy. The paper analyses the European and the German policy frameworks, social acceptance barriers and drivers in two regions of East Germany, and describes promising approaches that drive social acceptance and enhance the environmentally sound uptake of wind energy projects.

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