Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WinWind (Winning social acceptance for wind energy in wind energy scarce regions)

Teaser

The overall objective of WinWind is to enhance the socially inclusive and environmentally sound market uptake of wind energy by increasing its social acceptance in \'wind energy scarce regions\' (WESR). WESR are defined as regions with wind energy penetration levels that are...

Summary

The overall objective of WinWind is to enhance the socially inclusive and environmentally sound market uptake of wind energy by increasing its social acceptance in \'wind energy scarce regions\' (WESR). WESR are defined as regions with wind energy penetration levels that are lower than the EU average, despite having considerable economic potentials. The project has selected a number of target regions including Saxony and Thuringia in Germany, Latium and Abruzzo in Italy, Latvia, Norway, the Warmian-Masurian Province in Poland and the Balearic Islands in Spain. Within these regions, assessments are carried out on the conditions, barriers and drivers affecting social acceptance of wind energy. Additionally, WinWind analyses the regional and local specificities, socioeconomic, spatial & environmental characteristics and the reasons for slow market deployment in the target regions. Alongside these WESR, model regions within the same countries have been identified. These have high wind energy penetration levels and provide potential best practice references, particularly on the issue of how to enhance social acceptance.

WinWind pursues the following specific objectives:

1) Identification and assessment of region-specific barriers and social acceptance challenges in selected target regions constraining market deployment;
2) Evaluation of legal, institutional and political drivers and barriers for social acceptance and support at community, regional, national and European levels, with a special focus on procedural and financial community engagement;
3) Development of a catalogue of social acceptance barriers and drivers in the target regions;
4) Assessment and knowledge-building about social and environmental impacts of wind energy including community benefits, taking into account regional specificities, socioeconomic, spatial and environmental aspects;
5) Assessment of best practice policies and measures and novel governance mechanisms in the selected six countries and beyond, enhancing social acceptance;
6) Analysis of critical success factors of novel governance mechanisms in community engagement and assessment of the conditions for their transfer and uptake in other contexts;
7) Engagement with national and regional stakeholders to transfer knowledge about social and environmental impacts of wind energy and initiate a transfer of suitable measures and concepts within and between the partner countries and wind energy scarce target regions (“learning laboratories”);
8) Development of guiding principles and criteria for fair (i.e. socially inclusive and environmentally sound) wind energy as a guide for policy development taking into account innovative bottom-up initiatives, accompanied by a strategy for implementation;
9) Creation and engagement in a dialogue between WinWind country desks and EU stakeholders to assess how policy relevant initiatives at the country level can be adapted to the EU level to accelerate social acceptance, community participation and citizens´ engagement in wind energy;
10) Facilitation of policy learning, both within each partner country and target regions and among the countries and regions, to contribute towards improving national and regional policy as well as planning frameworks to enhance good governance and improve community participation and engagement;

WinWind makes use of a broadly recognised conceptual framework for different dimensions of acceptance. The workflow of the project is based on four key steps:

1) Analysis of social acceptance drivers and barriers in the target regions
2) Good/Best practice analysis
3) Best practice transfer
4) Lessons learnt and policy recommendations

In parallel to these, the consortium organises stakeholder dialogues via country specific stakeholder desks, thematic workshops, policy roundtables and stakeholder consultations. Each desk consists of the project partners and of selected stakeholders and market actors in the target and model regions.

Work performed

WinWind was launched in October 2017 and started with the establishment of country desks consisting of the project partners, stakeholders and market actors. In the first 15 months, the country desks have screened, analysed and discussed in regular meetings and thematic workshops barriers and drivers for acceptance as well as (good practice) strategies, also including procedural or financial participation measures.
In the next phase of the project, the desks will help assess best practices and support a transfer of best practices.

The main project outputs and results include:
• A report on the technical and socio-economic starting conditions in the WinWind target regions
• A comprehensive literature review assessing key social acceptance barriers and drivers in the target regions and beyond
• A conceptual framework for analysing social acceptance barriers and drivers. This helps to derive indications about how to build social acceptance, in terms of general, socio-political acceptance, market acceptance and community acceptance
• A taxonomy of social acceptance barriers and drivers (to be updated in M25)
• Country-specific stakeholder mappings and selections of stakeholders contributing to the country desks, ensuring a balanced representation of different market actors
• The establishment of country desks including work and time plans for stakeholder engagement and dialogues, and in total 19 completed thematic workshops involving major stakeholders from the WinWind target and model regions
• A stakeholder engagement and consultation plan for each partner country (LINK)
• A first consolidated summary report of desk activities in the first year of the project highlighting also the findings of the country desks and Thematic workshops
• A methodological framework for good and best practice selection and analysis guiding the qualitative case study analysis
• A portfolio of 30 good and best practices
• Launch of the website with a Twitter account und blog
• Project flyers in English and the six languages of the consortium
• Two policy briefs, one fact sheet and two newsletters
• Regular newsletters from the country desks in the respective languages (add-on activity)
• Three published articles in scientific journals and many more in the pipeline.

Final results

WinWind builds upon previous European initiatives, but has the ambition to go beyond them. It does so by addressing existing research gaps and strengthening empirical research on community participation and engagement measures, as well as governance mechanisms, taking into account contextual factors in different (regional and national) settings.

In the first reporting period, WinWind contributed towards raising awareness among stakeholders in all partner countries about the socio-economic and environmental impacts of wind energy, including community benefits. WinWind contributed to improve understanding of good practices and possible policy and regulatory developments. The project has enjoyed considerable political recognition in all participating countries. In some cases, partners have been invited by national or regional policy makers to provide input and recommendations to ongoing policy formulation processes (e.g. Latvia, Germany and Spain). The WinWind partners aim to feed the project’s findings into actual policy formulation processes, including the development of the integrated National Energy and Climate Plans.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.winwind-project.eu.