optimal diversity of renewable energy alternatives under multiple criteria an application to the uk we propose a multi criteria analysis of alternative combinations of renewable energy technologies to meet a sustainable energy supply it takes into account a range of criteria to reflect relevant environmental social and economic considerations capture the value of diversity and reflect innovative potential and learning capacity the combination of these factors allows for solutions in which there is more balance between economic environmental and social dimensions unlike in previous studies scenarios that might have been preferred on the basis of for example minimal costs or low co2 emissions will have to be reconsidered because of negative effects in terms of land use or unemployment the decision making philosophy in this case changes from that of optimization to multi criteria satisficing this article argues for consideration of the following dimensions of the energy system costs emissions water use land use and employment consideration of such dimensions will shift energy system into the direction of overall sustainability while making it more resilient in the long term the approach is applied to the case of the united kingdom by making use of a markal model complementing its goal of cost minimization with additional social and environmental criteria this gives rise to a number of suggestions for uk energy mix and policy

the relative importance of social and institutional conditions in the planning of wind power projects abstract governments around the world try to stimulate the development and use of renewable energy technologies like wind energy while wind turbines are increasingly being implemented however a lack of social acceptance at the local level remains an important challenge for developers of wind power plants this article aims to explore the relative importance of social and institutional conditions and their interdependencies in the operational process of planning wind power schemes the article not only focuses on how negative local social conditions can frustrate public policy cf nimby syndrome but also on how positive local social conditions can compensate for a negative public policy framework we analyzed the cases of implementing wind power of two actors the regional energy distributor and small private investors in the municipality of zeewolde the netherlands both cases illustrate that the formal institutional framework formal rules procedures and instruments is neutral in a certain sense social conditions management styles interests and informal contacts put meaning in this framework the way stakeholders deal with the prevailing institutional structure clarifies social acceptance and therewith implementation

the structure of financial equilibrium with exogenous yields the case of incomplete markets1 this paper presents an analysis of the structure of competitive equilibrium in a model whose principal feature is incomplete financial markets formulated in the spirit of arrow specifically the overall payoffs or returns from financial instruments are assumed to be fixed or predetermined independently of the operation of the economy and these instruments are assumed to be fewer in number than required to span all potential spot markets for commodities our main result establishes that market incompleteness generates a corresponding degree of allocation indeterminateness suppose there are n 1 spot markets but only 0 m n linearly independent financial instruments so that the deficiency in financial markets is 0 n n m n then subject to some relatively innocuous technical qualifications the set of equilibrium allocations contains a smooth n dimensional submanifold we also indicate how real indeterminacy may increase when returns for example the market price and promised interest on an ordinary bond are treated as variables rather than parameters

a step toward understanding wind power development policy barriers in advanced economies abstract a widely accepted premise regarding wind power development policy is that implementation of economic policy instruments which are designed to close the cost gap between wind power and entrenched fossil fuel power generation technologies will significantly catalyze enhanced levels of wind power development activity this paper contests this premise by arguing that non economic barriers to wind power development have the capacity to significantly inhibit wind power development in industrialized nations despite the implementation of economic policy instruments forces which deter wind power development in four economically advanced economies that exhibit phlegmatic progress in wind power development australia canada japan and taiwan are identified and amalgamated into a step framework describing social technical economic and political forces that inhibit wind power development the conclusions of this analysis are twofold first failure to mitigate these step forces may undermine the efficacy of any given economic policy instrument that aims to close the cost gap between wind power and entrenched generation technologies second attempts to mitigate these impediments might represent a way to achieve better policy results with less government financial commitment

planning of renewables schemes deliberative and fair decision making on landscape issues instead of reproachful accusations of non cooperation abstract the main issues related to successful implementation policies concern the socio economic institutions that are conditional to planning in the energy policy domain but also in the domain of spatial planning successful investments and the siting of renewable power plants eventually determine the success rate of national efforts in establishing renewable capacity central planning usually has several objectives and these often have a detrimental effect on the goal of renewable energy application current problems related to implementation decisions concerning wind power schemes are an example to those who will be faced by other renewable power plants notably biomass regarding community acceptance of wind power schemes the visual evaluation of the impact of wind power on the values of the landscape is by far the most dominant factor in explaining opposition or support type of landscape fully overshadows other attitudinal attributes as well as other visual and scenic factors such as the design of wind turbines and wind farms and the number and the size of turbines planning regimes and decision making practices that really enhance the implementation processes of renewable energy require strong ecological modernization this means institutional changes that create involvement and trust of actors at the actual implementation level local opposition cannot be explained by the egotistical motives of local residents when the inclination to behave according to supposed backyard motives is investigated the scale to measure this phenomenon appears to indicate commitment to equity issues and fairness of decision making hence for wind power local involvement to represent the local values of site specific landscapes is crucial for other renewables the source specific features are different but conflicts can be expected as well because the fairness of implementation decisions will be equally significant

diffusion of green power products in switzerland abstract as in many other european countries green electricity is an emerging product in switzerland as well although the market is yet to be liberalised more than 100 of the 1200 swiss electric utilities offer some sort of green electricity product to their customers successful companies like the municipal utilities of the cities of zurich and berne have reached customer response rates of up to 4 while still maintaining cost based pricing i e charging their customers price premiums of 400 700 per kwh while most of the products still rely on mainly photovoltaics some utilities have started to introduce mixed green electricity products also including wind power with a share of 60 in the swiss generation mix hydropower s role in the green electricity mix was also an issue to emerge causing controversial debate while being renewable hydropower is not considered environmentally benign by all the stakeholders and unlike new renewables solar wind biomass there is little room for new hydropower generation facilities in switzerland the green electricity labelling scheme naturemade tackles that issue the labelling organisation has evolved from a process with broad stakeholder involvement which included environmental ngos scientific institutions green electricity providers renewable energy advocates government bodies and consumer organisations the analysis in this paper is based on a diffusion theory framework it identifies and characterises different phases of past and future market development and stresses the importance of eco labelling as a tool to facilitate the transition from niche to mass market finally we also discuss conclusions that can be drawn from the swiss case towards market development and labelling on a european level

general equilibrium with endogenously incomplete financial markets abstract the present paper studies a class of general equilibrium economies with imperfectly competitive financial intermediaries and price taking consumers intermediaries optimally choose the securities they issue and the bid ask spread they charge financial intermediation is costly and hence markets are endogenously incomplete an appropriate equilibrium concept is developed and existence is proved competitive equilibria for this class of economies display full indexation of securities payoffs and monetary neutrality even if intermediaries are restricted to issue nominal securities and financial markets turn out to be incomplete this is in sharp contrast with the indeterminacy and non neutrality results established in the literature for incomplete markets economies with exogenously given nominal securities journal of economic literaturclassification numbers d52 g20

prices asset markets and indeterminacy abstract competitive equilibrium allocations are indeterminate when the net trades in commodities are constrained while the asset market is incomplete the model encompasses economies with deferred payment for commodities economies with nominal assets and economies with bundling of commodities and assets journal of economic literature classification numbers d50 d52

patterns of acceptance and non acceptance within energy landscapes a case study on wind energy expansion in austria abstract wind energy is a key technology in the transition toward a low carbon society but acceptance is considered to be a constraining factor in achieving ambitious wind deployment targets based on an austrian case study this paper investigates eight decisive patterns of acceptance and non acceptance of wind energy we apply qualitative research methods such as interviews focus groups and worldcafe discussions with stakeholders on the national level and with citizens and local decision makers at potential wind power expansion sites the results show that local opposition to wind energy cannot be explained by single factors but is caused by a complex set of individual and collective preferences rooted in institutional and socio political arrangements the problem concerning these conflicting patterns is that they are trapped in often opposing or confronting policy core beliefs which are unlikely to change hence it is necessary to appeal to overarching targets like the claims of environmental justice to counterbalance the impacts of wind energy we conclude that there is a strong demand for fair decision making processes and an equal distribution of environmental and economic gains and losses this article is part of a virtual special issue entitled the collaborative making of energy landscapes

community perspectives of wind energy in australia the application of a justice and community fairness framework to increase social acceptance decisions concerning the siting of infrastructure developments or the use of natural resources have the potential to damage a community s social well being if the outcomes are perceived to be unfair justice is accepted as central to the well functioning of society with fairness being an expectation in day to day interactions outcomes that are perceived to be unfair can result in protests damaged relationships and divided communities particularly when decisions are made which benefit some sections of the community at the perceived expense of others through empirical research using a wind farm pilot study community perceptions of a community consultation process are explored using procedural justice principles to evaluate fairness findings from the pilot study indicate that perceptions of fairness do influence how people perceive the legitimacy of the outcome and that a fairer process will increase acceptance of the outcome a key research finding was that different sections of a community are likely to be influenced by different aspects of justice namely by outcome fairness outcome favourability and process fairness based on this finding a community fairness framework was developed which has potential application in community consultation to increase social acceptance of the outcome

an assessment of exploiting renewable energy sources with concerns of policy and technology in recent years the taiwanese government has vigorously promoted the development of renewable energy to engage the challenges of gradual depletion of fossil fuels and oil as well as the intensification of the greenhouse effect since the sustainable energy policy principles were announced in 2008 taiwanese government has declared that the development of renewable energy should take into account goals that pertain to energy the environment and the economy 3e goals this study aims to assess the 3e goals and renewable energy sources regulated by the renewable energy development bill that passed in 2009 the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process fahp is used to resolve the multi goal problem for achieving our research purposes that is this research attempts to reveal the suitable renewable energy sources for the purposes of meeting the 3e policy goals the results first show that environmental goal is the most important to the development of various renewable energy technologies in taiwan followed by the economic and energy goals additionally hydropower solar energy and wind energy would be the renewable energy sources utilized in meeting the 3e policy goals

commission revenue maximization in a general equilibrium model of asset creation abstract a general equilibrium model of endogenous asset formation is given in which a monopolistic agent called the designer can create any types of assets and charage commissions as long as the total number of the types of assets does not exceed some given constant when the designer can create at most two assets a commission revenue maximizers always exists otherwise it may not moreover the so called maximizers may be badly behaved a profit maximiser may not exist even when the number of types of assets is endogenously determined from a positive fixed costs of creating an asset journal of economic literature classification numbers d52 d80

wind power implementation the nature of public attitudes equity and fairness instead of backyard motives abstract public attitudes anywhere in europe show moderate to strong support for the implementation of renewable energy nevertheless planning wind power developments appears to be a complicated matter in most countries the problems that have to be dealt with during decision making processes on the siting of wind turbines are usually referred to as mere communication problems however public attitudes towards wind power are fundamentally different from attitudes towards wind farms this gap causes misunderstandings about the nature of public support for renewables in particular where planners easily assume support for renewables can be generated by information campaigns emphasising the environmental benefits whereas opposition to renewable energy schemes can be explained by a selfish not in my backyard attitude both explanations used by planners authorities and unfortunately by many scholars are falsified furthermore policies that still take this common knowledge for granted can have negative consequences for the implementation rates of renewables visual evaluation of the impact of wind power on landscape values is by far the dominant factor in explaining why some are opposed to wind power and others are supporting it moreover feelings about equity and fairness appear the determinants of backyard motives instead of selfishness

shale gas policy in the united kingdom an argumentative discourse analysis shale gas has become an energy policy priority in the united kingdom in light of profitable extraction activities in the united states since 2012 the coalition government has created key economic drivers to encourage shale exploration whilst growing activism in affected site communities has stirred significant media and academic commentary this study examines the growing national debate as a matter of discourse adopting an argumentative discourse analytic approach to assess data collected from stakeholder interviews n 21 and key policy actor statements quoted in broadsheet newspapers we explore three dominant storylines emerging in relation to shale gas policy 1 cleanliness and dirt concerns the relative framing of the environmental benefits and harms of shale gas 2 energy transitions pathways and diversions concerns geographic metaphors of transitions to carbon intensive and low carbon energy systems and 3 geographies of environmental justice concerns divisions of economic benefit distribution environmental impact and procedural fairness we find that central government policy rhetoric emphasises economic development regulatory oversight and distribution of benefits to site communities whilst minimising discussion of the implications of shale gas for anthropogenic climate change the role of these discourses in influencing shale gas policy is discussed

exploring participatory energy budgeting as a policy instrument to foster energy justice abstract the ethical and sustainable production and consumption of energy are becoming increasingly important with the ongoing transformation and decentralization of the energy system for other kinds of goods and commodities ethical consumption have direct implications for and the participation of informed citizens due to its intangibility energy lacks the same levels of reflection and intervention by citizens and those aspects are yet to be fully explored in practice this paper contributes to the understanding of how energy justice might be approached we reflect on an empirical experience of participatory energy budgeting a process aimed at determining how to redistribute a share of energy linked to collective virtuous consumption behaviors we analyze through a qualitative thematic analysis how participants make sense of the participatory energy budgeting process and the emerged dynamics within the local communities and how this process can strive to reconfigure the relationship among civil society the energy sector and politics in order to remediate injustices we highlight how the construction in practice of energy justice in a local community might be closely linked to issues such as the form of energy governance that allows for the participation of citizens and the accountability of the process policies and technological limitations

nimby or not exploring the relevance of location and the politics of voiced opinions in renewable energy siting controversies local protests against renewable energy facilities have added fuel to the debate about the so called nimby not in my back yard effect this paper identifies six variables that can hamper the comparison between different public perception studies and offers two broad conclusions on aggregate proximity does have strong influence on public attitudes to proposed projects but the nature strength and spatial scale of this effect may vary according to local context and value of the land residents of stigmatised places are more likely to welcome facilities that are relatively green while people who derive a more positive sense of identity from particular rural landscapes are likely to resist such potential developments especially if they also live there secondly the fear of being branded a nimby and the positive ethics associated with the notion of renewable are both likely to colour the responses of many interviewees these aspects need to be clarified and accounted for in analyses of elicited responses both quantitative and qualitative if we are to improve our understanding of the social construction of individual attitudes in siting conflicts

institutional factors influencing strategic decision making in energy policy a case study of wind energy in france and quebec canada abstract this article studies the different institutional factors that influence a strategic wind energy decision making process through a comparative transnational study of quebec canada and france research confirms that political choices are dynamic and vary with a change in the wind energy context the balance of power between pressure groups supranational influences energy evaluation approaches and social acceptance until the 90 s an initially unfavorable national energy context combined with a neocorporatist culture as defined by szarka 2004 1 limited the place of wind energy in both jurisdictions in the 2000 s a political window opened when the private sector penetrated the market with the deregulation of the electricity sector exogenous pressure from the european union in france endogenous pressure from social actions in quebec and a more favorable energy context in both cases however this political window was short lived due to social acceptance issues in quebec political will was stronger until 2013 now the social controversy surrounding wind energy has shifted from the local to the national level projects are better accepted locally because of local financial involvement but an anticipated electricity surplus questions the relevance of new energy projects in france political support depends on the government in power between 2005 and 2013 the reduction in annual wind power installations from 1246 mw to 621 mw was due to the major influence of the anti wind lobby on a right wing government after 2013 the left wing government s arrival coincided with a phasing out of several regulatory and financial uncertainties today both jurisdictions are at a crossroads and the future energy mix will depend on the relative influence of the institutional components identified in our opinion key solutions to more sustainable political choices are conditioned by an improvement in the way projects and policies plans and programs are assessed

wind farm externalities and public preferences for community consultation in ireland a discrete choice experiments approach abstract in ireland the deployment of onshore wind turbines has become progressively more difficult in some areas because of the potential negative externalities associated with their operation using a discrete choice experiment dce we employ a willingness to accept framework to estimate the external effects of wind turbines on local residents with the inclusion of community consultation and to quantify the compensation required to permit wind farms to be built in ireland our findings reveal that the majority of respondents are willing to make monetary tradeoffs to allow for wind power initiatives and we find that respondents require less compensation if provision is made for a community representative and setback distance is increased

community renewable energy at a crossroads a think piece on degrowth technology and the democratization of the german energy system abstract degrowth activists and scholars have questioned society s current levels of material throughput and energy use the energy sector is at the core of any modern economy and germany serves as an international showcase for the transition of a large industrialized economy to a low carbon energy system diverse actors organizational models and technologies have contributed to the initiation of germany s energy transition through a wide range of community renewable energy projects the think piece investigates how far these diverse actors embrace the aims of the degrowth movement it also provides a critical account of on the ground realities through six hypotheses and contrasts them with claims made by the degrowth movement it is suggested that community renewable energy projects are at a crossroads while many projects have familiarized thousands of people with alternative economic models there is little evidence of a general change in attitudes towards technology consumption or equity in conclusion a major effort is needed to open initiatives to less affluent actors oppose recent trends of commodification and prevent community renewable energy projects from being engrossed by the dominant political and economic system

improving australia s renewable energy project policy and planning a multiple stakeholder analysis abstract renewable energy re is part of australia s and the world s energy supply matrix with over a 100 billion spent annually on re projects since 2007 businesses seeking to invest in re projects particularly in the wind and solar energy sectors may face an onerous collection of planning approvals and permitting processes that impede investment and implementation in this study we draw on international and domestic stakeholder inputs to a governmental inquiry in australia to show how re projects might be approved in shortened timeframes with reduced associated costs the process mapping and stakeholder analysis demonstrates that re supply projects can benefit from standardized approval processes and documentation a 360 deep engagement with stakeholders and expanded electricity grid access in resource areas augmented through supportive public policy and planning frameworks in addition stakeholder objections to project approval and implementation streamlining were used to contrast the efficacy of the proposed changes in policy

distributional justice in swedish wind power development an odds ratio analysis of windmill localization and local residents socio economic characteristics with a fast rise in large scale wind power development in sweden and other countries in recent years issues related to energy justice generally and distributional justice specifically have become

the networked minority how a small group prevailed in a local windfarm conflict abstract this paper aims to explain through a qualitative case study how a small protest group prevailed during a local windfarm conflict in south eastern australia a social capital analytical framework was developed to analyse the data the analysis found that two communities inhabited the area for which the windfarm development was proposed the public participation process failed to address the concerns of both communities and led to the emergence of a social network of resistance the network had high stocks of bridging social capital which enabled an effective protest that led to the abandonment of the development their effectiveness was inadvertently aided by the windfarm supporters who were unable to act collectively to defend their interests because socio economic changes in the community among other factors had led to a depletion of their social capital in this context different democratic participatory processes were needed to address the concerns of the two communities guidance and tools for researching and developing the types of participatory processes needed for vulnerable communities with low social capital and those similar to the social network with high social capital are provided these will inform community appropriate public participation processes and participatory planning policy

energy supply security and geopolitics a european perspective the security of energy supply to the eu is examined in the context of two storylines markets and institutions exemplifies an economically and politically integrated multilateral world with effective institutions and markets regions and empires involves a world broken up in rival political and economic blocks competing for resources and markets via political economic and military power it is shown that these storylines have a significant impact on the development of the energy market on the way in which energy supply may be secured and on the effect and applicability of the several types of instruments available the current eu is geared towards enlargement and a deepening of economic integration based on the tenets of the post 1945 multilateral world system the present world tends towards regions and empires and suggests that the eu may have to reorient its energy security policy energy policy must become an integral part of eu external trade and foreign relations and security policy the eu should develop its own strategy actively investing in dialogues with producer countries in the persian gulf and africa and with russia sustainable prosperity and governance in these regions will support eu energy security

public estimates of support for offshore wind energy false consensus pluralistic ignorance and partisan effects abstract meeting future energy demands will require large scale implementation of renewable energy projects if one of these energy sources offshore wind becomes a common sight off coastlines consideration of local public opinion and action will be critical previous research from the social sciences has lacked depth in examining the underlying factors that shape public opinion towards offshore wind development the current research brings a new perspective to the literature by showing that how members of the public perceive support among others relates to their own opinions of offshore wind energy we report results from two surveys the first focused on opinion formation relating to offshore wind in general among new england residents while the second focused on a specific offshore wind project in rhode island we find evidence that both supporters and opponents of offshore wind underestimate levels of support among others indicating a pluralistic ignorance effect and false consensus effect respectively we also find distinct patterns of perceived support among self identified republicans and democrats the findings hold important implications for policymakers and developers in understanding the nature of public support and opposition for offshore wind energy particularly with respect to individuals willingness to publicly engage with offshore wind projects

social acceptance of renewable energy innovation an introduction to the concept this paper introduces the special issue on social acceptance of renewable energy innovation it is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in tramelan switzerland in february 2006 while there are ambitious government targets to increase the share of renewable energy in many countries it is increasingly recognized that social acceptance may be a constraining factor in achieving this target this is particularly apparent in the case of wind energy which has become a subject of contested debates in several countries largely due to its visual impact on landscapes this paper introduces three dimensions of social acceptance namely socio political community and market acceptance factors influencing socio political and community acceptance are increasingly recognized as being important for understanding the apparent contradictions between general public support for renewable energy innovation and the difficult realization of specific projects the third dimension market acceptance has received less attention so far and provides opportunities for further research particularly from management scholars

geothermal energy and the public a case study on deliberative citizens engagement in central italy abstract this paper reports on a case study on the citizens engagement with developments towards the harnessing of geothermal energy in central italy the research has been conducted within the framework of a larger project on the feasibility of further geothermal developments in italy funded by the italian government the aims of the case study research were first to explore the role of public and stakeholder engagement in the processes of innovation in the geothermal energy sector second to design implement and consolidate a methodological framework for comparative analysis of case studies on citizens engagement thus bringing a social scientific perspective into geothermal energy research the results show general support for renewable energy but knowledge and understanding of the potential of geothermal is remarkably low lack of trust in politics and unsure public communication emerged as prominent themes where the common good and community developments are sharply contrasted with corporate and private interests as geothermal energy is included and encouraged under the european strategic energy plan and in the paris agreement on halting climate change the results can make significant input into future policy making by providing concrete guidelines on citizens engagement in processes of culturally sustainable innovation

public attitudes regarding large scale solar energy development in the u s abstract using data collected from both a national sample as well as an oversample in u s southwest we examine public attitudes toward the construction of utility scale solar facilities in the u s as well as development in one s own county our multivariate analyses assess demographic and socio psychological factors as well as context in terms of proximity of proposed project by considering the effect of predictors for respondents living in the southwest versus those from a national sample we find that the predictors and impact of the predictors related to support and opposition to solar development vary in terms of psychological and physical distance overall for respondents living in the u s southwest we find that environmentalism belief that developers receive too many incentives and trust in project developers to be significantly related to support and opposition to solar development in general when southwest respondents consider large scale solar development in their county the influence of these variables changes so that property value race and age only yield influence differential effects occur for respondents of our national sample we believe our findings to be relevant for those outside the u s due to the considerable growth pv solar has experienced in the last decade especially in china japan germany and the u s

the inclusion of social aspects in power planning a b s t r a c t this paper overviews previous research addressing the inclusion of the social dimension of sustainable development on power systems planning consequences of the recent energy policies and strategies are already being felt in developed countries power systems with the integration of rising quotas in renewable energy technologies however while the tools that aid decision making on power planning show that economic and environmental issues are easily quantifiable and thus modeled social concerns have been addressed in a less extensive and more subjective way implying in most cases expert participation on multi criteria decision aid techniques a survey of recent papers providing public perceptions on electricity generation technologies and projects is presented these papers were chosen and reviewed in order to present a representative array of methodologies that are used to assess social acceptance of technologies according to some of the reviewed papers this issue is suggested to be fundamental to increase project success as a conclusion stands the fact that further discussion is still needed in order to achieve solid agreement among experts over what are the positive and the negative drivers to social sustainability otherwise models will not be able to translate reality and improve it under this point of view

lessons learned in france and quebec regarding financial and legal mechanisms to develop renewable energy a hybrid model as an acceptable solution for onshore wind abstract this article shows that the unfavorable context of emergence as well as neo corporatism limited the weight of wind energy in france and quebec and delayed the project development and the wind industry as a whole indeed the level of political will to wind energy development in both jurisdictions is fluctuating and characterized by a lack of continuity in policy or regulatory instruments the efficiency of the pricing mechanisms depends on its political design while the french feed in tariff is inefficient in terms of installed capacity and is deemed too expensive by opponents the first two calls for tenders in quebec fare quite well on that front however they are perceived as unacceptable due to the multinational companies involved and the implantation of large scale wind farms in inhabited areas the third community call for tender while generally better accepted locally is poorly regarded among the cooperative movement and at the national level because of the competition with the municipal sector and higher costs to society in both cases a hybrid pricing model would achieve a better balance between costs to society and local development thus promoting social acceptance through a greater diversity in ownership types and wind farms size

subsidies for residential solar photovoltaic energy systems in western australia distributional procedural and outcome justice governments seek to increase renewable energy capacity by providing subsidies to householders opting to install residential solar energy photovoltaic systems the funds used to pay for these subsidies are sourced from tax revenue or electricity tariffs paid by all community members including those on a low income this sees a redistribution of funds from all community members to installers of residential solar energy systems this research compared community attitudes towards distributional justice or the fairness of this redistribution of funds with outcome justice associated with the environmental benefits of renewable energy a randomised survey distributed in four metropolitan and two regional communities in western australian resulted in 295 responses a response rate of 22 33 of community members prioritised distributional justice 30 prioritised outcome justice and 37 indicated that they were unsure about their preference however support for renewable energy was found with 80 of respondents supportive of renewable energy subsidies and 68 supportive of renewable energy taxation including in electricity tariffs qualitative comments indicate that in spite of the preoccupation with distributional justice in the residential solar energy literature community members are concerned with procedural justice issues in this case procedural justice can be interpreted as government commitment to existing policy the expanded scope of renewable energy policy and enhanced regulations

a review of international green power markets recent experience trends and market drivers green power marketing the act of differentially selling electricity generated wholly or in part from renewable sources has emerged in more than a dozen countries around the world almost two million customers worldwide buy green power today this paper reviews green power marketing activity in australia canada japan the us and in a number of countries in europe to gain an understanding of consumer demand for electricity generated from renewable sources it also examines key factors that influence market penetration of green power products such as product designs pricing incentives marketing strategies policies and product certification 2002 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

an evolutionary approach to financial innovation the purpose of this paper is to explain why some markets for financial products take off while others vanish as soon as they have emerged to this end we model an infinite sequence of capm economies in which financial products can be used for insurance purposes agents participation in these financial products however is restricted consecutive stage economies are linked by a mapping transition function which determines the next period s participation structure from the preceding period s participation the transition function generates a dynamic process of market participation which is driven by the percentage of informed traders and the rate at which a new asset is adopted we then analyse the evolutionary stability of stationary equilibria in accordance with the empirical literature on financial innovation it is obtained that the success of a financial innovation a mutation depends on a sufficiently high trading volume marketing and new and differentiated hedging opportunities in particular a set of complete markets forming a stationary equilibrium is robust with respect to any further financial innovation while this is not necessarily true for a set of incomplete markets

what influences the probability of wind farm planning approval evidence from ireland the purpose of this work is to explore the extent to which wind farm planning approvals in the republic of ireland are influenced by project technology institutional processes and site endowments we use principal components data reduction z score data normalization and probit regression analyses on a unique revealed preference dataset covering 354 wind farm applications and planning authority decisions between 1990 and 2011 notably a unique measure of variable importance is employed that mitigates statistical problems and allows for the ranking of predictors according to their relative influences findings reveal that the duration of the local appeal process decisions of local authorities and inspectors identities of the appellants and projects that conflict with strategic development plans or generate visual externalities emerge as key influences affecting planning approval project technology features such as area rated output capacity and hub height as well as site wind endowments appear to be of less but significant importance alternatively we find that proximity to dwellings towns or protected habitats does not influence planning outcomes

keep it local and fish friendly social acceptance of hydropower projects in switzerland hydropower is the largest source of renewable electricity in the world but despite being a mature and clean energy technology it has also been the subject of ecological and social conflict literature suggests that the social acceptance of renewable energy can be increased by respecting procedural justice fair participatory planning processes and distributional justice fairly allocating costs and benefits however empirical evidence about how justice considerations are related to the expansion of hydropower is scarce pre existing studies being mostly qualitative in nature we contribute to filling the gap in the current literature by describing in this paper how choice experiments with 1004 swiss residents were undertaken to explore the influence of procedural and distributional justice on acceptance relative to other attributes of hydropower projects we find that while considerations about justice do play a role in decisions to accept respondents in switzerland care most about ecological impacts and secondly about local ownership

equilibrium indeterminacy in a model of constrained financial markets i present a general equilibrium model with incomplete markets in which assets pay in units of a numeraire good in this economy agents are constrained to negotiate the same amount of assets in different states of the world different from the standard result of economies with real assets equilibrium indeterminacy can arise depending on the structure of the financial markets equilibrium fails to be unique when it is not possible to transfer wealth between states in which consumers trade a pair of assets that face the same restriction

does green consumerism increase the acceptance of wind power abstract in this paper we discuss what might be termed an action based learning approach to promoting important pro environmental actions such as support for or acceptance of environmental policy such an approach involves promoting simple and easy behaviours as entry points for more radical steps towards sustainability referred to as catalytic or wedge behaviours despite the obvious need for innovative approaches to promote important pro environmental behaviour and sound theoretical backing for such concepts there is a lack of research testing the key propositions of this approach in a survey study based on a random sample of residents of the state of maine usa we find that both everyday green behaviour and the acceptance of an expansion of wind power are rooted in environmental concern and that everyday green behaviour gives a significant contribution to predicting acceptance of wind power when controlling for environmental concern hence the promotion of everyday green behaviours may prepare the grounds for increasing acceptance of more far reaching changes in the population such as an expansion of wind power

social problems of green buildings from the humanistic needs to social acceptance abstract in the past few decades scholars have conducted research and held discussions on green building to highlight their vital significance in addressing environmental economic and social challenges it is recognized that public attitudes and views towards green building may affect its application in daily lives although studies on consumers cognition are rarely carried out the social problems related to green building such as consumers basic understanding purchase intention social and humanistic needs public attitudes and behaviors rebound effects and furthermore social acceptance are therefore studied based on three research methods including literature review questionnaire and inductive analysis through the analysis following results can be obtained i green building s sustainable design has quite important influence over consumers decision making process the general public maintains a high regard for the advantages of green building where better ventilation and lighting is a major benefit saving energy and water are the second rated and then land and construction material saving ii although the general public is not being familiar with the concept of green building the majority of participants would pay more for green buildings over the standard building when they know the environmental impacts of them iii green building should not only be limited to energy performance oriented but also be user oriented the social and humanistic needs model is thus well established based on maslow s hierarchy of needs in the life cycle of green building social and humanistic needs show a trend of dynamics which means social processes with consumer engagement and participation needs to be considered in aspects of conceptual design planning and design operation and maintenance to improve users happiness and productivity iv current user oriented solutions to green building are always based on a hypothesis that consumers are readily motivated or prefer expensive goods for reducing energy use to really reflect preference and influenced actions social acceptance should be analyzed to fully gauge interest and perspective of the people v rebound effects of post occupant building performance including energy performance human comfort indoor environmental quality greenhouse gas emission and workplace productivity can be divided into two stages at present it is necessary to establish appropriate samples methods and parameters for an unbiased and valid post occupant evaluation system in addition the social acceptance of green building framework is established based on wustenhagen et al triangular model for renewable energy innovation all the explorations to social problems of green building in this article are expected to provide a healthy social basis for the development of this green strategy

real indeterminacy with financial assets abstract it is shown that in a two period general equilibrium securities model where assets pay in money the generic dimension of the set of equilibrium allocations in the incomplete market situation is s 1 where s is the number of assets hence the degree or real indeterminacy is independent of the number of assets this result requires beyond fewer assets than states that the number of traders be larger than the number of securities and that the asset return matrix be in general position the generic dimension for arbitrary returns matrix is also obtained it is argued in addition that the presence of real or mixed assets does not by itself lower the degree of indeterminacy

social responses to wind energy development in ontario the influence of health risk perceptions and associated concerns this study documents and analyzes the role of health risk perceptions and other associated concerns of wind energy development henceforth wed in ontario drawing on the risk society framework we conduct a longitudinal media content analysis to document and analyze perceptions of and responses to wed over a nine year period attention is paid to temporal variations in responses relative to ontario s green energy act 2009 henceforth gea legislation aimed at the rapid expansion of renewable energy the study reveals that the most radical forms of resistance to wed on health grounds are driven by perceived injustices in the treatment of potential at risk citizens and citizens with health concerns the gea is fuelling these perceptions of injustices in subtle and nuanced ways particularly by acting as a major confounder to health risk concerns contrary to several existing studies we problematize the use of financial incentives to foster the development of wind energy we also provide policy recommendations which include the need for increased public engagement in the wed process the importance of using third party health and environmental assessments to inform developments as well as the need for post development strategies to address ongoing community concerns

electric dis connections comparative review of smart grid news coverage in the united states and canada abstract the term smart grid sg has been widely used in both the united states u s and canada to represent multiple visions and configurations of electricity system change in both countries policies programs and initiatives have emerged to promote technological and social changes associated with sg and different patterns of sg implementation and governance are apparent at local regional and national levels this paper reports on a comparative analysis of sg media content in nationally circulating newspapers in the u s and canada to explore patterns of sg conversations in the two countries media reporting about sg provides a valuable lens that reflects public discourse and also contributes to setting the public agenda by shaping public opinion and framing key issues despite similarities in terms of policy program design and sg deployment strategies several prominent differences between the two countries emerge in public conversations firstly canadian sg newspaper content focuses more on implementation and describing people s experiences with smart meters while the u s content focuses more on commercial opportunities with more reference to private sector actors and various technological components beyond smart meters secondly although media coverage in both countries frequently highlights technological and economic benefits of sg positive sg framing is more frequent in the u s newspapers than in the canadian ones negative sg portrayals including cultural political and health and safety risks are more frequently mentioned in the canadian newspapers these differing sg framings could be due to national level cultural differences in the u s considered to be more of an individualistic society there is more emphasis on business opportunities being entrepreneurial and more private sector involvement in the electricity sector by contrast in canada public authorities more prominent in the electricity market than in the u s play a key role in smart grid deployment furthermore in canada considered to have more social support structures for individuals and communities there was more emphasis on the experiences of people this suggests that cultural differences at the national level be a further contextual lens helpful to policy makers and technology proponents as they embark upon energy system change initiatives

optimal futures innovation in a dynamic economy the discrete time case abstract we study the optimal futures innovation in a dynamic economy and investigate how the results obtained in a static economy should be modified due to the possibility of dynamic trading we analyze three different notions of ex ante optimality depending on the authority s ability to redistribute wealth among the investors and characterize the optimal futures innovation in each sense journal of economic literature classification numbers d52 d60 g10

planning siting and the local acceptance of wind power some lessons from the french case abstract after some years of trifling development under a system of public tenders 1995 2000 french politicians progressively changed the national policy framework for feed in tariffs december 2000 and wind power development zones july 2005 the new policy framework has triggered a beginning of takeoff in wind power capacity the paper examines french wind power development in the light of two key dimensions and concepts related to wind power policy planning and siting part 1 we particularly focus on the recent french legislative debate which led to the adoption of the new policy framework part 2 the french case shows that the recourse to planning tools was not tailor made for siting issues but resulted from a political fight over the decentralization of energy policy the policy outcome which we call flexible decentralized planning is both interesting and ambiguous it is interesting in that it develops interfaces between planning tools and siting institutions it is ambiguous in that it is potentially very hierarchical the final decision power is left in state planners hands making it unpredictable the extent to which room will genuinely be provided for siting processes to take place

portfolio choice exchange rates and indeterminacy consider an exchange economy under uncertainty the asset market is incomplete there are fewer assets a than states of nature s assets are nominal and are denominated in n distinct currencies competitive equilibria are distinct if the associated allocations are distinct an economy displays k degrees of indeterminacy if the set of distinct competitive equilibria contains a k dimensional open set generically the economy displays ns a n 1 n degrees of indeterminacy

issues of social acceptance on biofuel development alongside with biofuel development social acceptance issues have been underestimated while social acceptance can emerge as powerful barrier for biofuel development this article provides discussion on social acceptance in biofuel context an acceptance framework based on life cycle biofuel production had been referred for a better understanding on social acceptance issues malaysia has been referred for the discussion as the country has faced with acceptance issue in their biofuel program the discussion point out different societal groups will demand specific consideration for either support or oppose biofuel this paper concludes that biofuel development will be constraint if social acceptance issues remain neglect

wind electricity in denmark a survey of policies their effectiveness and factors motivating their introduction this paper surveys the development of the policies supporting the introduction of wind electricity in denmark in the last 15 years with special attention to the new policy introduced after a 2 year long debate the aim of this paper is to explore the roles of financial support policy certainty and planning constraints in the diffusion of wind electricity in denmark and the reasons prompting the change of the system in the current decade it is discovered that political uncertainty has badly affected the effectiveness of the feed in law in the years immediately after its introduction with regard to the new system it is concluded that the change has been prompted by generous conditions under the feed in law and by the desire to facilitate the modernisation of old turbines it is also concluded that incentive based systems can be more effective than tradable quotas in promoting the modernisation of renewable plants this finding is relevant to the development of energy policy in countries such as germany and spain where the average age of wind turbines is much younger than those existing in denmark

is small beautiful a multicriteria assessment of small scale energy technology applications in local governments in its 2003 white paper the uk government set ambitious renewable energy targets local governments and households have an increasing role in the overall energy system as consumers suppliers of smaller scale applications and citizens discussing energy projects in this paper we consider if small scale or large scale approaches to renewable energy provision can achieve energy targets in the most socially economically and environmentally see effective way we take a local case study of renewable energy provision in the metropolitan borough of kirklees in yorkshire uk and apply a multi criteria decision analysis methodology to compare the small scale schemes implemented in kirklees with large scale alternatives the results indicate that small scale schemes are the most see effective despite large scale schemes being more financially viable the selection of the criteria on which the alternatives are assessed and the assigned weights for each criterion are of crucial importance it is thus very important to include the relevant stakeholders to elicit this information

levelling the playing field the influence of national wind power planning instruments on conflicts of interests in a swedish county slow and complicated wind power planning and permitting procedures have been a large obstacle for wind power diffusion in sweden and other countries this paper complements previous siting oriented literature with a planning perspective on these problems the focus is two national planning instruments implemented in sweden in the early 2000s a national planning target and an appointment of areas of national interest for wind power the paper identifies different types of conflicts of interest related to wind power in addition to the conflict between wind power as a national public interest and various local private interests and analyses the impact of the national planning instruments on the handling of these conflicts in the land use planning process in the county of ostergotland the analysis shows that the planning target actually made local planning officials even more inclined to treat wind power as a private rather than a public interest and that the method used to identify areas of national interest of wind power forced wind power to compete with the combined strengths of all other public interest the planning instruments thus left wind power to fight an uphill battle rather than to meet other interests face to face on a level playing field