Study 1:  Tookits for (Potential) Turbine Communities

Summary

The purpose of the proposed project is to create toolkits for dialogue (e.g., a rapid assessment survey) for potential turbine "host" communities and wind energy developers to improve turbine facility siting by better: 1) addressing equity in benefits negotiations and; 2) minimizing intra-community conflict. Concern about inequitable financial benefits and unacceptable community conflict were key problems identified in two recent studies we published on predicting support for turbines in Ontario wind turbine communities.

Context

Governments are turning to turbine generated electricity to reduce pollution including CO2 emissions and increase energy sovereignty. Policies such as the Ontario government's Green Energy Act have been hailed for dramatically increasing wind energy capacity. Yet, this has often come at the cost of considerable turmoil in rural communities. For example, several municipal councils have passed resolutions telling the Ontario Government that they are officially "unwilling hosts" for wind turbines. Amid concerns about the health impacts of turbines, there are currently studies underway to address the issue of noise and health impacts (e.g., Health Canada ).

Yet there are other related issues that are equally deserving of research and policy attention including: facility siting, fairness in the distribution of costs and benefits, and community conflict. For example, the Ontario wind turbine facility siting system has allowed developers to negotiate individual lease agreements with landowners ($8K or more/yr/turbine), but potentially offer neighbours nothing. Though the lessee has the turbine physically placed on their land, their neighbour also has to live with the same negative externalities like noise, vibration, and potential property value loss.

Methodology

The research will be carried out in two phases – data collection and analysis (the study) and toolkit creation and dissemination. The work will be carried out in four communities, two in Ontario and two in Nova Scotia.

The study will comprise two key research methods – in-depth qualitative interviews and a follow-up quantitative survey with three key stakeholder groups: residents within 2km of actual/proposed turbines, the turbine developers and their agents (consultants) as well as municipal politicians and municipal staff. The 2km distance is one that is commonly advocated by concerned citizens groups as a reasonable distance to protect against the negative impacts of turbines.

The in-depth interviews will allow the stakeholders to candidly express all their views on turbines and turbine siting.

The interpretation of the interviews will be used to build questions that will subsequently be assessed by participants using closed-ended survey rating (Likert) scales to get a sense of who prefers what and why. The survey data analysis will focus on which aspects of turbine siting are most preferred, and the variables that predict support for turbines and key siting models; towards the overall goal of developing the dialogue toolkits.

In the second phase of the study, the findings from the interview and survey analyses will be combined to build the toolkits, as well as validate and disseminate them. At the end of the project we will get all the stakeholder groups in each case community together to outline the findings and share ideas about their use.

Outcomes

There will be at least three concrete outcomes from this project: the dialogue toolkit findings report, an interactive website, and peer-reviewed publications of the study findings. The community toolkit will provide residents in new potential host communities information to facilitate negotiating fair benefits agreements in the local context and strategies to avoid harmful intra-community conflict. The point of the toolkit is to generate some collective understandings of what residents want and fear. This website is for up-to-date information on our studies and their dissemination. The peer-reviewed publications are for the use of all stakeholders for justifying evidence-based actions regarding turbine siting and policy.

Learn More

To learn more about this study please see the list of publications, the mobilization area or contact us directly.

News

Carelle earns AAG paper award! 17 Apr 2021

Canadian MOCWE survey results arriving! 7 Nov 2020

Attitudes towards wind turbine health effects pathways 20 Oct 2020

Carelle's paper on energy transitions and and reconciliation accepted for publication 9 Sep 2020

Ireland wind neighbours pilot survey 6 Sep 2020

Paige Callaghan joins the team 28 May 2020

Carelle completes interview phase of M'Chigeeng research partnership 16 Oct 2019

Carelle, Parveen and Jamie join low carbon transition workshop in Belfast NI 20 Sep 2019

Welcome Sara to the research team 10 Sep 2019

M'Chigeeng-MOCWE (Western U) research partnership launch! 25 Jul 2019

International Energy Association Wind Task 28: Social Accpetance of Wind Energy 28 Mar 2018

Welcome Parveen to the research team 8 Jan 2018

Renewables in Remote Communities: Whitehorse 24 Oct 2017

Welcome Carelle to the research team 28 Sept 2017

Dr. Walker off to Queen's, Postdoc A SHARED Future 1 Sept 2017

Team research workshop and fieldtrip - thanks to our hosts! 18 August 2017

News and views piece on community participation published in Nature Energy 18 July 2017

Dr. Walker! 27 June 2017

Jamie attends workshop for A SHARED Future 24 March 2017

Media coverage of "Toolkit" studies 6 March 2017

Final "Toolkit" available for download 10 February 2017

"Toolkit" and Dec 8 Workshop/Webinar details posted 6 December 2016

On Thurs, Dec. 8, 2016 we will be holding our end-of-project workshop for the "toolkit" series of studies. 17 October 2016

Graduate students needed for new funded studies! 8 July 2016

Study 1: All data collected and being analyzed 11 February 2016

Lessons learned from Ontario wind energy disputes manuscript published 26 January 2016

"Adding insult to injury" manuscript published 23 November 2015

Emmanuel Songsore earns PhD focused on media analysis. Congratulations! 19 October 2015

Survey for study 1 has been mailed out to prospective respondents. 15 June 2015

COAREP seeking turbine lease-holders in the Adelaide-Metcalfe area to interview (confidential/anonymous)! 17 February 2014

Meghan McMorris joins the research team to work with Indigenous communities. 17 February 2015

Fieldwork in Ontario and Nova Scotia 8 October 2014

Media release of "Beyond Rhetoric" study paper 21 May 2014

"Geographic perspectives on wind energy" 10 April 2014

Launch of COAREP website 9 April 2014