Local opposition to renewables and growing barrier to CO2 goals

Winning local support for the large-scale wind and solar projects necessary to achieve carbon reduction goals is a growing challenge, according to a first-of-a-kind survey of renewable energy developers by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The researchers published a new paper in Energy Research & Social Science based on the survey last year of more than 120 representatives from 62 renewable energy developers.

Among the key findings: 80 percent said community opposition to utility-scale wind and solar projects will get in the way of achieving decarbonization goals.

“Public response to large-scale renewable energy facilities is increasingly shaping how deployment is occurring, both in terms of how fast projects are getting built, but also just kind of the overall spread of where they’re getting built,” said lead author Robi Nilson, a postdoctoral fellow in the Energy Markets and Policy Department at the lab.