Urban wind power and the private sector : community benefits, social acceptance and public engagement

Given the ambitious government targets for renewable energy generation in the UK, there has been a push by government and industry towards various types and scales of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs). This paper explores the implications of commercial urban wind projects for local communities, drawing on a case study of proposals by ASDA to construct wind turbines in two semi-urban locations in the UK. The paper argues that community responses to the proposals were complex and varied and could not adequately be encapsulated by 'nimby' (not in my back yard) assignations. It concludes that while ASDA followed a process of consulting local people, this process highlighted the problems of the 'business as usual' approach to public engagement employed by ASDA, and assumptions made about public acceptance of RETs

Co-production in distributed generation:Renewable energy and creating space for fitting infrastructure within landscapes

This review describes the infrastructural elements of the socio-technical system of power supply based on renewables and the role of landscape concerns in decision-making about emerging ‘intelligent grids’. The considerable land areas required for energy infrastructure call for sizable ‘distributed generation’ close to energy consumption. Securing community acceptance of renewables’ infrastructure, perceived impacts on the community, and ‘landscape justice’ requires two types of co-production: in power supply and in making space available. With co-production, landscape issues are prominent, for some options dominant. However, ‘objectification’ of landscape, such as the use of ‘visibility’ as proxy for ‘visual impact’, is part of lingering centralised and hierarchical approaches to the deployment of renewables. Institutional tendencies of centralisation and hierarchy, in power supply management as well as in siting, should be replaced by co-production, as follows from common pool resources theory. Co-production is the key to respecting landscape values, furthering justice, and achieving community acceptance