Promoting sustainable energy
Date: Jun 05, 2007
How would you like a wind farm or a hydrogen fuel station built in your local area? A team at the University is working in collaboration with European research partners, communities and project managers in just this situation to help promote the acceptance of sustainable energy.
Led by Research Fellow, Dr Mike Hodson, from the Centre for Sustainable Urban & Regional Futures, the team is working with colleagues from nine European institutions and project managers including those at a wind farm in Hungary and hydrogen transport demonstrations in Iceland.
Their intention is to improve communications with local communities as they seek to meet the increased demand for sources of energy with reduced carbon emissions.
The aim of the Create Acceptance project is to develop a manual that is also available online as a resource for project managers to create more effective relationships with local communities. This is illustrated by practical examples derived from 25 historical case studies and which highlights the importance for project managers of understanding potential issues such as levels of public awareness of new technologies, the siting of these technologies, economic costs and environmental risks.
Mike said: “One of the key reasons why renewable energy technology initiatives fail to meet their stated objectives is a lack of social acceptance. The Create Acceptance project fills this gap by developing more effective communications strategies for social acceptance in partnership with project managers.”
This partnership has meant a close involvement in Create Acceptance for project managers. This has been done by using their ongoing and practical projects as active case studies for learning about what communications strategies with local communities work well. It has also involved a series of workshops where researchers, project managers and other stakeholders share lessons from their often very different experiences of developing renewable energy projects.
Caption: Iceland: just one of the projects Mike and his team are working with.