Social Aspects of Energy Innovations - Public Perceptions of Energy Technologies

Cultural influences on Renewable Energy Acceptance and Tools for the development of communication strategies to promotE ACCEPTANCE among key actor groups

Project aim
Create Acceptance aims to improve the conditions for renewable energy technologies (RET) and technologies for rational use of energy (RUE) by developing a tool for assessing and promoting the social acceptance of such technologies.

Background
The current understanding of social processes affecting the (non-) acceptance of renewable energy technologies is limited. Project managers often assume that stakeholders without a doubt will adopt and adapt to their innovation. In practice, however, stakeholders such as users, NGO's or local public authorities might have different (and possibly conflicting) visions about the innovation and the future world in which the innovation should fit in. If this is neglected project implementation might face severe societal resistance in the implementation phase.

Socrobust
The Socrobust tool (developed in an earlier EC project) can be used for anticipating conflicting views and scenarios. Socrobust has originally been developed from an innovator's perspective. It is a tool for making explicit assumptions build into an ongoing project, construct a 'future world' based on these assumptions and compare that world with the current situation. This comparison then gives insight in the plausibility of the future world and the steps and developments necessary for realizing that world. To use Socrobust for assessing and promoting social acceptance the tool requires adjustments.

The deliverables published by ECN can be downloaded here:

ECN: CreateAcceptance

Social Aspects of Energy Innovations - Public Perceptions of Energy Technologies

Cultural influences on Renewable Energy Acceptance and Tools for the development of communication strategies to promotE ACCEPTANCE among key actor groups