Engagement of all on board – pv magazine International

From the magazine pv 06/24

Some regions have a lot of industry but limited renewable energy resources, while other regions have the opposite. Ensuring community acceptance of infrastructure to deliver energy where it is needed can be both incredibly complex and incredibly simple.

“Speak and listen. It’s really that simple,” said Nancy Kluth, spokeswoman for the Amprion project in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. “Go in, talk to people, really listen to what makes sense to them, and then find a way to compromise if you can, or adapt and incorporate what you hear and learn into your actual planning process if you can.”

As with large-scale energy projects, the sooner this happens, the better. Amprion, identified in EU publications for its positive practices, is one of four large German grid infrastructure companies. Amprion uses information fairs, community meetings, “blue islands” of wildflowers around pylons and green covering of substations.

Kluth said the “talking and listening” part includes explaining what it’s for and what the need is for the network infrastructure.

Amprion is building or modernizing 3,500 km of power lines and creating a new direct current (DC) connection from Lower Saxony in the north to Baden-Württemberg in the south, via North Rhine-Westphalia. The company is actively building offshore connections and increasing the capacity of its regional lines and substations.

Electrons in transit

When large DC transmission lines go to other regions, Kluth says, locals usually understand the benefits “for Germany, for German industry, but also in terms of energy security for everyone.”

Europe’s energy networks must accommodate the electrification of transport, heating, cooling and industry, as well as low-emission hydrogen production.

As heavily industrialized Germany modernizes and expands its grids, it also needs to import energy. Greece plans to become a green hydrogen hub to supply clean energy to regions with heavy industry, such as Germany.

On the Greek island of Evia, 750 wind turbines have already been erected to supply power to other regions, with more planned. Katerina Apostolatou, a member of the Environment Protection Society of South Karystia, is fundamentally opposed to all wind power on the island. She said that is partly because environmental concerns have not been adequately heard. She is not opposed to renewable energy, as are other members of the community who oppose the hundreds of wind turbines popping up all over Evia. On the contrary, they are all for clean energy, but not there, in this form, on this scale, or with what they say is causing a lot of inconvenience to the local population and little or no benefit.

In a way, this is typical of energy transition infrastructure projects that are subject to the green-on-green conflict. Ultimately, it is about industrial infrastructure that may or may not be well-positioned, ensuring the sustainability of the local environment.

Familiar horizons

Areas renowned for their natural beauty will usually have a harder time getting attractive infrastructure accepted by the community than areas already saturated with industry.

Kluth of Amprion said that in the “Ruhrgebiet” region of Germany, where she lives and works as an advocate, people are used to industrial infrastructure, although Aprion’s projects still face some opposition. Studies in the United States have shown that areas with existing industrial infrastructure pose less of a challenge for community acceptance.

Environmental and social concerns about utility-scale energy projects also tend to correlate with scale. For example, a recent study in the US found that established solar projects larger than 100 MW have greater problems with community acceptance. The larger the project, whether in power generation or grid infrastructure, the more unsightly it is and the larger the institutions involved. Such sites tend to be more imposing and less accessible to local communities.

“Energy colonialism”

The people of Euboea fear that their beautiful region will become an industrial energy center that will wipe them out, and the island will become merely an energy center, providing electricity elsewhere.

Some residents said they would feel more positive if any wind turbine power was produced for the local population. Many opponents of large wind projects said they wanted solar power.

Transmitting electricity between regions in large-scale energy projects, such as Evia’s large wind farms, is very different from the infrastructure of decentralised, community solar projects that supply electricity to local communities.

It is easy to understand why small-scale energy infrastructure must accompany large-scale ambitions. The people of Evia do not see this small-scale local distribution.

The question of “what’s in it for us?” is hard to answer when local solar power is almost nonexistent. The old ferry that ferries tourists to the island reeks of dirty bunker fuel so strongly that it’s unpleasant to step aboard, aging local transmission lines have been linked to the fires that recently ravaged the island, and local substations from half a century ago look like something out of a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie. Meanwhile, remote regions receive abundant clean, renewable energy. Locals don’t even know where that energy goes.

Who does what?

That said, many of the concerns of Evia’s residents have little to do with energy or infrastructure companies. Complaints also relate to the way land is acquired or allocated, and the way money is transferred to the appropriate contractors, but these do not serve the local energy transformation. The benefits to the end consumer from electrification do not necessarily lie with the contracted energy and infrastructure providers, but all of these issues affect the level of community acceptance of larger energy infrastructure projects.

Asked how she deals with complaints that are more the responsibility of any number of different stakeholders, Kluth from Amprion said: “There are many stakeholders and many things happening at the same time. Just last week we met with the Rhineland-Palatinate government and they brought everyone together – wind farmers and smaller grid providers – to look at the planning and challenge ideas so that we have a better view of other people’s planning and can incorporate and combine them.”

Communication is a two-way street. Kluth firmly believes that locals know their area best. That’s why she was assigned the area she knows and lives in, and why she listens to what locals have to say about their needs.

Sometimes, however, she gets much more than she bargained for. People sometimes throw out general problems that are not relevant to the current projects. A certain degree of resistance can help create a stronger project. Opponents help to bring problems to light, question things from a different perspective, and notice details that would not otherwise come to light. In Evia, one such opponent says she was the first person to inform one energy supplier that it did not have the proper permit.

What should you do when promises aren’t kept, when work isn’t done properly? What if corruption is involved? A European Union whistleblower law recently came into effect in Germany. Companies with more than 250 employees must now follow guidelines that allow people to report things that are going wrong without fear of reprisal. Greece is also under pressure to implement such a law. Every energy infrastructure project that goes wrong makes it harder for others to get their act together. Transparency ensures better communication on all fronts. Getting to “yes,” Kluth said, means finding a win-win solution.