Nadejda Komendantova from the Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) program gives a talk on "Factors of awareness and social support for energy transition" at the workshop "Activating People for Energy Transition in the Baltic Sea Region". The workshop is dedicated to the role of public acceptance and bottom-up grassroots movements in energy transition and is organised by the University of Greifswald, Germany. The talk is based on the experience of the Austrian Climate and Energy Model Regions (LINKS) project.

windmill © Wang Song | Dreamstime.com

Public acceptance and bottom-up grassroots movements play an essential role in the energy transition. As a result, it is vital to understand how to unlock the potential for public, community, and prosumer participation in renewable energy deployment and a clean energy transition; consequently, how social acceptability emerges.

 

The existing body of literature on these topics may be extensive, but it often provides little guidance to policymakers and other actors on how to proceed with their work given the complex nature of social acceptance and acceptability. 


The aim of the workshop is to exchange ideas about the potential for active stakeholders' engagement in the energy transition in the Baltic Sea Region in order to foster clean energy deployment in the region.

The workshop covers the following topics:

  • challenges of social acceptance and its policy implications;
  • the role of prosumers in energy-system flexibility;
  • strategies to address challenges of acceptability among stakeholders and facilitate             stakeholder participation in energy production;
  • bottom-up and grassroots activities for the energy transition; and
  • community engagement in clean energy production.