Research on the social acceptance of renewable energy technologies: past, present and future

Abstract

Social sciences have been very prolific in the last decades in publishing research that attempts to better understand the social acceptance of renewable energy technologies and associated infrastructures (RET) – such as high voltage power lines – and processes – such as communities’ participation in related decision-making processes. This Perspective proposes that this might be a good point in time, roughly 30 years after social sciences begun looking at the social side of RET, to offer a (over)view on that research, if and how it has changed over time and where it leaves us currently or, in other words, which directions we should follow in the future. I first provide an overview of research on the social acceptance of RET, suggesting that it can be roughly organized around three waves - normative, criticism and critical -; for then identifying and discussing some avenues for future research.