Solar Power Cells, Hot Water, Energy, Collectors

Community Heat and Power

01.01.70

Local community initiated and run renewable energy projects seem to be catching on around the EU. Wind co-ops have been very common in Denmark for many years- about 80% of the wind generation capacity is locally owned. It seems to be one reason why local opposition to wind is much lower than in the UK, where there are very few locally owned projects. As the Danes say ’ your own pigs don’t smell’.

It’s similar in Germany where many projects are locally owned. A comparative study conducted in Germany by researchers from the University of Amsterdam concluded that the social acceptance of wind power is very high in general, and even higher when community members are directly involved. 62% of the residents near a community owned wind farm expressed a positive or very positive opinion on the wind farm in their neighbourhood and only 1 % had a negative or very negative attitude. In the case of the non-community owned wind farm, 47 % expressed a neutral opinion, while 26% were positive or very positive and 27 % were negative or very negative.

Source: environmentalresearchweb (blog)