The Impact and Compensation of Offshore Wind Farm Development: Analysing the Institutional Discourse from a French Case Study

Abstract

In France, the public acceptability of marine renewable energies and their impacts on ecosystem services (ES) involves questions about compensation for stakeholders, who may perceive some of their activities and interests to be modified. This paper seeks to understand how impacts on ES are perceived by institutional stakeholders and what is expected in terms of compensation. It also seeks to identify the communities of practice affected. We focus our study on the planned offshore wind farm in the bay of Saint-Brieuc. Our results show that institutional discourse is heterogeneous, depending on sensitivities, interests, and who or what the stakeholders surveyed represent or defend. Stakeholders' discourse can be interpreted on various gradients of perception. Six distinct communities of practice have been identified, based on the impacts perceived by institutional stakeholders. Lastly, we show that the community of practice seems to be a proper level at which to study perceptions and assess the no-net-loss goal.

Key Words:

• communities of practice
• ecosystem services
• compensatory measures
• no-net-loss goal
• arine renewable energy
• offshore wind farm

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the institutional stakeholders who took part in the survey for their time and contribution.

Notes

1 This fund will be used by the National Fund for Compensation of offshore wind energy, as follows: 50% of the amount will be given to the coastal towns where the turbines will be visible. To benefit from the fund, the maximum distance from the turbines is 12 nautical miles; 35% will be allocated to the National Fisheries Committee to fund projects promoting sustainable exploitation of fishery resources; and 15% will finance projects contributing to the sustainable development of maritime activities.