The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Affect and its Role for Renewable Energy Acceptance

To foster a socially accepted energy transition, it is essential to gain insights into motives for acceptance or rejection of technologies related to renewable energies. The study aims to shed light on the emotional evaluation of renewable energy technologies and in how far the affective responses are correlated with the acceptance of those technologies. An empirical study is conducted in which a semantic differential is used to assess emotional evaluation of wind power, solar power (PV) and biomass for electricity production. Furthermore, general acceptance of the technologies was assessed. It was found that not only did the technologies differ in terms of emotional responses they evoked, but that those responses also varied significantly between groups of high and low levels of acceptance concerning the respective energy technology. By analyzing spontaneous associations with the three energy sources, possible reasons for the affective evaluations were identified, which can provide essential topics for the communication about those technologies. Overall, the three renewable energy technologies revealed different emotional evaluations which might considerably impact the overall acceptance. It is argued that knowledge about such affective perceptions is useful to tailor energy technology development in early phases and to steer public information and communication strategies.