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Windfarm Acceptability and the Co-Operative Model of Local Ownership

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Windfarm Acceptability and the Co-Operative Model of Local Ownership Windfarm acceptability and the co-operative model of local ownership Giuseppe Pellegrini-Masini, PhD Candidate Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Heriot-Watt University, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society March 2017 “The copyright in this thesis is owned by the author. Any quotation from the thesis or use of any of the information contained in it must acknowledge this thesis as the source of the quotation or information.” Abstract UK and European renewable energy targets require a wider deployment of wind energy if they are to be met. Despite a growing installed capacity of wind energy, social acceptability of wind farms is still a social factor hindering the pace of deployment. In recent years, community involvement in renewable energy projects has been increasingly advocated by many as a positive factor leading to several benefits including a wider acceptability. Interest has been risen by community schemes of whole or partial ownership of wind farms. This thesis draws on a range of social and psychological theories to propose an original integrated theoretical framework to explain social acceptability of wind and to research the suitability of the co-operative scheme of community ownership in overcoming local opposition to wind projects. Two studies were carried out: a qualitative study surveyed the community co-operative case of Westmill in England and a quantitative postal survey investigated the opinions of residents living up to a distance of ten kilometres from four proposed wind farms in Scotland. It was found that perceived local costs and benefits and social and individual resources influence acceptability of proposed wind farms. Further, the co-operative scheme appears not to be regarded as capable of affecting substantially acceptability, nevertheless participants acknowledge its suitability to benefit the community of the chance of participating in the revenue of the wind farm and in building social capital. ii Acknowledgments I wish to thank my family and my supervisor Professor Phil Banfill for their enduring support, especially in the difficult times that I went through. This work was possible also thanks to the financial support of the EPSRC, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. iii Contents 1 Chapter 1 Introduction and Literature Review........................................................ 11 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 11 1.1.1 Policy context ............................................................................................ 11 1.1.2 Renewable energy and the future electricity system ................................. 12 1.1.3 Citizenship policy ..................................................................................... 13 1.2 Literature review –first stage ............................................................................ 14 1.2.1 Citizenship ................................................................................................ 14 1.2.2 Citizenship, the environment and energy .................................................. 17 1.2.3 Psychological approaches of civic engagement ........................................ 18 1.2.4 Citizens’ participation in the context of sustainable energy development 29 1.2.5 Environmentally responsible behaviour and its determinants .................. 30 1.3 The case of co-operatives, producers of green electricity ................................ 33 1.4 Proposed framework of participation in co-operatives of green electricity ..... 35 1.5 Literature review update ................................................................................... 43 1.5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 43 1.5.2 Opposition to wind energy ........................................................................ 43 1.5.3 Attitudinal factors...................................................................................... 45 1.5.4 Personal resources ..................................................................................... 69 1.5.5 Contextual factors ..................................................................................... 75 1.5.6 Conclusions of chapter one ....................................................................... 89 2 Chapter 2 Research design: methods and data collection ....................................... 90 2.1 Research questions ........................................................................................... 90 2.2 Research design ................................................................................................ 91 2.2.1 First study .................................................................................................. 92 2.2.2 Second study ............................................................................................. 94 3 Chapter 3 Analysis of the qualitative study .......................................................... 104 3.1 Citizenship, environmental citizenship, responsibilities and rights ............... 104 3.1.1 Citizenship .............................................................................................. 104 3.1.2 Local citizenship, place attachment and place identity ........................... 110 3.2 The co-operative scheme ................................................................................ 113 3.2.1 Community owned or potentially divisive? ............................................ 118 3.2.2 Compensation .......................................................................................... 119 3.3 Local opposition and support to wind farms framed within a rational choice and attitudes integrated approach .............................................................................. 124 iv 3.3.1 Is the case of wind farms as a high-cost situation? ................................. 126 3.4 Major costs and benefits in the Westmill case ............................................... 130 3.4.1 Noise pollution, a major health cost? ...................................................... 130 3.4.2 Distress originated by the visual impact: as a possible health cost ......... 133 3.4.3 Economic cost: the possible devaluation of property prices ................... 135 3.4.4 Economic benefits: the revenue available for co-operative members and free services for the local community ................................................................... 137 3.5 Socioeconomic status ..................................................................................... 138 3.6 Minor costs and benefits in the Westmill case ............................................... 141 3.6.1 Visual impact and noise .......................................................................... 141 3.7 Pro-environmental attitudes and values: avoiding cognitive dissonance ....... 144 3.8 Networks in competition: using communication to magnify costs or benefits 147 3.9 Nimbyism, an outdated concept to define opposition .................................... 149 3.10 Conclusions from the qualitative study ...................................................... 152 4 Chapter 4 Design and analysis of the quantitative study ...................................... 157 4.1 Themes emerged from the qualitative study informing the questionnaire survey 157 4.2 Questionnaire’s development ......................................................................... 159 4.2.1 Choice of questions ................................................................................. 160 4.3 Questionnaire administration, data quality checks and response rate ............ 165 4.4 Variable frequencies and bar charts ............................................................... 167 4.4.1 Personal resources and demographic variables ....................................... 167 4.4.2 Awareness and opinion about the locally proposed wind farm .............. 178 4.4.3 Attitudinal factors.................................................................................... 184 4.4.4 Contextual factors ................................................................................... 194 4.5 Bivariate correlations ..................................................................................... 204 4.5.1 Statistical tests used to assess correlations .............................................. 204 4.5.2 Personal resources and demographic variables ....................................... 205 4.5.3 Attitudinal factors.................................................................................... 219 4.5.4 Contextual factors ................................................................................... 228 4.5.5 Summary table of correlations ................................................................ 234 4.6 Multivariate analysis ...................................................................................... 235 4.6.1 Factors influencing acceptability of wind farms ..................................... 235 4.6.2 Factors influencing the opinion about the co-operative scheme ............. 242 v 4.6.3 Factors influencing the decision to invest in co-operative wind farms ... 245 4.7 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 249 5 Chapter 5 Discussion ............................................................................................ 250 5.1 Can
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