Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy in Developing Countries: Challenges and Opportunities

ABSTRACT

Utilization of renewable energy technologies has short-term, middle-term and long term interests. Since the portion of renewable energies have to increase 10% till 2025, legislating relevant policies for increasing the portion of these energies is essential. This article reports studies about the social acceptance level of renewable energies in a selected developing country by using social acceptance pyramid. First, the identified indicators are weighted based on the circumstances of renewable energies. After that, the selected renewable sources, wind, solar, and geothermal, are ranked based on the indicators and analytical hierarchy process. The research results indicate that wind energy has the better social acceptance position than solar and geothermal energies. Finally, some polices are suggested for increasing the acceptance level of all renewable energies in developing countries.

Key words::

• social acceptance
• renewable energies
• developing countries

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ali Hosseini

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ali Hosseini is a doctoral student of technology management at the Allameh Tabatabaee University, Iran. He received his MSc. in technology management. His research interests are technology management, product development, and technology collaboration.

Mohammad Mahdi Zolfagharzadeh

Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Zolfagharzadeh is an assistant professor of future studies at the University of Tehran. His research interests are futures studies, public policy, and social acceptance.

Ali Asghar Sadabadi

Ali Asghar Sadabadi is a doctoral student of science and technology policy at University of Tehran, Iran. His research interests are public policy, technology management, and cultural studies.

Alireza Aslani

Dr. Alireza Aslani is an assistant professor, Renewable Energy Department, at the University of Tehran. He is also a project researcher at the University of Vaasa, Finland. His priorities for research are energy modeling, security of energy supply, and energy policy making. Corresponding author: [email protected], [phone]

Hoda Jafari

Hoda Jafari is a MSc. student of future studies engineering at the University of Tehran, Iran. She received her BSc. in industrial engineering. Her research interests are future studies, and innovation management.