Valuing public acceptance for on-shore wind energy: A choice experiment approach

Over the last 15 years, there has been an increasing scientific debate on public acceptance of wind energy developments. The rise of asymmetries between stakeholders, policy makers and the general public about landscape issues and socio-economic benefits has brought the question of public acceptance of renewable energies to the attention of the international scientific community. The debate, so far, strongly focuses on empirical evidence worldwide and critical assessments to the conceptualization of acceptance, including, for example, economic (markets), regulatory and technological (innovation) aspects. Nonetheless, there are still gaps in terms of wind technology perception relatively to the energy risks of fossil fuels. In this framework, the present Thesis aims at assessing actors’ perception of wind farms and the existing trade-off between energy risks and territorial impact of wind energy production. To reach the above aims, the present study uses a stated preferences approach expressed in hypothetical markets with particular focus on choice experiments (CEs) analysis. The case study uses an ad-hoc survey for residents of Apulia region in the south of Italy. According to national statistics, this region can be considered as representative of the national wind energy context. The present Thesis’s work provides interesting results in terms of choice behaviour between landscape conservation and two scenarios of landscape transformation. Main results enables to: i) Evaluate the incidence of energy risks on the perception of wind farms using CEs; ii) Identify social, economic and environmental attitudes for the implementation of a wind project; iii) Analyse the potential trade-off between on-shore wind farms, land conservation and energy risks; iv) Investigate hypothetical bias in CEs; v) Understand the potential relationship occurring between wind energy perception clusters of innovators, assuming this technology as increasingly dominant and innovative in the energy market; vi) Suggest relevant insights from a bottom-up perspective and close the gap with top-down strategies.