Although renewable energy projects are crucial for the energy transition, they often face significant opposition, which can hinder their implementation and result in substantial financial losses and reputational harm. To prevent this situation, some organizations are now focusing on evaluating...

The French “APER” law of 2023 introduced a new concept into French energy law, the concept of territorial value sharing. Territorial value sharing is a way of improving the social acceptability of energy transition projects, which is essential if we are to achieve objectives in the fight...

Energy transitions are invariably socio-technical phenomena. However, institutional bias toward resolving the associated technical and economic barriers has left significant blind spots with regards to the social and cultural contexts that both frame and facilitate transitions. While it...

The social acceptance of low carbon energy transitions is a dynamic process concerning different low carbon energy technologies (LCETs), differentially empowered stakeholders (socio-political, market, and community), and deployment processes occurring across different spatialities and scales...

The chapter argues that to understand the seeming paradox of frequent local opposition to renewable energy technologies despite public support, it is productive to examine the ontological politics of how surveys help enact public acceptance. Science and Technology Studies (STS) approaches have...

Heating is a crucial dimension of the transition to a climate-neutral energy system, yet Germany's shift to zero-emission heating has been slow, particularly in phasing out fossil fuels and adopting renewable alternatives. Natural gas and oil remain dominant in decentralized heating systems. To...

This chapter explores the social dimensions of geothermal energy, focusing on public perceptions, acceptance, and attitudes related to deep geothermal drilling technologies. The main objective is to assess how the development and deployment of an innovative drilling method influence societal...

The residential sector presents one of the most pressing decarbonisation challenges, especially within historically gas-dependent nations such as the UK. Compounding this challenge, issues of social acceptance have slowed efforts to advance the residential decarbonisation agenda in the UK...

The global trend towards sustainable transportation – associated with advances in technology and concerns about the environment and related policy change – is contributing to a growth in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). The increasing prevalence of EVs highlights the critical need...

Energy communities represent a “new” strategic lever for the energy transition. They promote the self-production of green energy and citizen involvement, which strengthens the social acceptance of renewable energy and accelerates its large-scale deployment. However, while European...