Strategies for the deployment of micro-generation: Implications for social acceptance

By Raphael Sauter, Jim Watson. 2007

324 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation has often been discussed in the context of large renewable technology projects, acceptance having been seen as rather passive consent by the public. The potential importance of micro-generation technologies in the future energy supply mix and policymakers’ increasing attention to these technologies requires a different approach to the social acceptance of renewable energy innovation and energy infrastructure technologies. Instead of mere consent to an infrastructure project, domestic micro-generation requires active acceptance by homeowners, whereby individual households become part of the electricity supply infrastructure. Acceptance may therefore be expressed in various forms: attitudes, behaviour and—most importantly—investments. This paper argues that different deployment models with varying degrees of company and consumer involvement will have a significant influence on the social acceptance of domestic micro-generation and therefore the market uptake of these technologies. Three deployment models are elaborated and briefly situated in the current UK energy policy context.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Pollution, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7acfb7f1eb187d7a65b22d724d9c1f298287b023

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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

In Pollution

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: An introduction to the concept (2007, unknown): “Even in the extreme case of micro generation (discussed by Sauter and Watson, 2007, this issue ), where the siting decision becomes in effect an individual investment decision, market acceptance, community and socio-political acceptance may still play a role for a number of reasons (affected neighb”
Public Participation and Institutional Fit: A Social–Psychological Perspective (2013, background): “These likely pose a different set of concerns for public participation than those encountered with public works like a nuclear power plant (Sauter and Watson 2007).”
What role for microgeneration in a shift to a low carbon domestic energy sector in the UK? (2011, background): “Sanstad and Howarth 1994; Brown 2001; Oxera 2006), and there is evidence that it applies to microgeneration as well (Jager 2006; Sauter and Watson 2007).”
Explaining the Diversity of Motivations Behind Community Renewable Energy (2016, background): “It follows that households will invest in RE microgeneration systems if the expected return of the investment, in the form of avoided electricity imports and therefore reduced electricity bills, balances or exceeds its upfront capital cost (Bergman and Eyre, 2011; Sauter and Watson, 2007).”
A Survey on Smart Grid Communication Infrastructures: Motivations, Requirements and Challenges (2013, background): “In [26] it discussed the broader implications of the social acceptance of these new energy generation technologies, as they represent a significant departure from incumbent approach of traditional monolithic large scale energy generation.”
Acceptance, acceptability and environmental justice: the role of community benefits in wind energy development (2011, background): “…number of explanations of what might happen when community benefits are provided by wind farm developers, it also raises questions about the concept of ‘social acceptability’, which has become a critical variable in explaining public responses to renewable energy (see also Sauter and Watson 2007).”
Three is a crowd? Exploring the potential of crowdfunding for renewable energy in the Netherlands (2016, background): “…as third party ownership (Drury et al., 2012) and as a leasing model (Rai and Sigrin, 2013), while it has also been dubbed as company control model with a relatively small role for the consumer of electricity who is only providing the site of the microgeneration system (Sauter and Watson, 2007).”