About
Project overview
The WIMBY project was dedicated to increasing the use of wind power as a renewable energy source by addressing challenges that threatened its deployment, such as restrictive regulations and negative public perception.
Innovative models were used to assess wind power development impacts, potential conflicts, and synergies, while guidelines were developed to increase public engagement. The project results were then translated into practical information for stakeholders to make informed decisions and were shared via open-access repositories and social media.
In addition, the project provided a Web-GIS interactive platform to enhance the accessibility and usability of information and allowed knowledge exchange among various stakeholders. The platform enabled the early engagement of local stakeholders and citizens, involving them from the beginning of the project in the planning, implementation, and operating processes of wind farm deployment.
By facilitating societal engagement and support for wind power, the project aimed to contribute to the decarbonisation strategy of the EU.
Context
ContextWind power is one of the fastest-growing, most mature and cost-competitive renewable energy technologies. But its deployment faces significant challenges due to a lack of knowledge of the complexity of its impacts and benefits. While wind power is seen as a promising solution to reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change, it has also met resistance from local communities.
The effect that the project seeks to counter is called NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). It describes the opposition of local communities to new developments that they feel could negatively impact their neighbourhood or community. Often, citizens are supportive of these types of projects in theory; still, when it come to having them built nearby, they become concerned about issues like noise, safety, and property value.
Challenges
ChallengesWIMBY addressed these challenges by involving citizens and stakeholders throughout the entire process, collecting concerns, developing easy-to-use tools, and promoting open and transparent communication.
To conduct truly transparent and transdisciplinary research, we involved experts such as renewable energy scientists, behavioural economists, terrestrial and marine ecologists, landscape and urban planners, environmental scientists, wind power engineers, lawyers, physicists, climate and sustainability scientists, human-computer interaction developers, human geography experts, and non-profit associations.
tenets of Transitional Justice in WIMBY
Distributional Justice
Identify the concern
(WP1/WP2)
Requiring an analysis of objective impact, distributional effects and repercussions
Justice as Recognition
Identify whom it affects
(WP3/WP4)
And how impact and repercussions are perceived subjectively by the groups
Procedural Justice
Identify remediation strategies
(WP4/WP5/wp6)
Through an interactive immersive 3D environment and a Web-GIS forum based empowerment process
Stakeholders
Methodology
The WIMBY project analysed how wind power affected different communities and ecosystems across Europe through a series of interactive engagement tools. Through studies and data collection, the research developed scenarios, guidelines, and models that could be applied on a large scale.
The project was a multilevel study, where the team’s experience and existing studies were applied to four pilot cases. It proceeded as follows:
- Identify and assess the concerns and impacts from social, health, and environmental perspectives
Building on:
- Existing data from NEWA (link) and Global Atlas of siting parameters GASP (link) and GASPOC (link) to allow computation of various technical, economic and human-relevant parameters (e.g. capacity factors, LCOE, noise etc.)
- Impact assessments related with land and sea use and with the affected ecosystems.
- Comparative risk assessments of impacts on society, health and sustainability.
- Identify who are the different actors affected
Thanks to:
Stakeholder mapping and MCSA: this phase aimed to identify the various actors potentially benefiting from incentives, the social influences involved, and the situational socioeconomic dependencies between stakeholders. The results were included in “prototype cases” to be further explored through field studies within the four pilot regions. In these sites, observational studies took place, and the methodology was refined and validated.
Stakeholder engagement in pilot sites: the approach was tested through dedicated workshops. From these activities, guidelines and recommendations were derived to formulate final suggestions.
- Identify trade-offs and synergies between impacts to create deployment strategies
Holistic system analysis, which took into consideration not only high-level techno-economic details but also the social and ecological factors. These factors determined to what extent and in which locations wind energy could actually be deployed. Criteria were weighted according to expert judgment and stakeholder preferences to reach the optimal trade-off between cost implications and the minimisation of impacts.
Geospatial mapping and assessment conducted through interactive tools co-created with stakeholders. These were developed as a comprehensive platform where a WebGIS, an immersive 3D simulation tool, and a discussion forum were used as empowering tools for multi-stakeholder interaction
Collection of guidelines and best practices for policymakers at the regional, national, and European levels. These were derived from feedback on the multi-criteria stakeholder analysis (MCSA) and the WIMBY interactive tools, laying the foundation for future participatory engagement approaches.
- Apply Citizen Science and Social research methodologies to involve local stakeholders in decision-making processes
Tailored MCSA framework focused on the active inclusion of citizens in all decision-making processes, offering opportunities to express needs and concerns. In parallel, citizens had a say in the definition of proper business models for financial participation—for example, as members of energy communities. Satisfaction and acceptance questionnaires ensured that the most important criteria, sub-criteria, and parameters affecting public opinion were identified.
This is why Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) were central to WIMBY. Their input was essential to:
Translate research results into usable information for real-life applications.
Investigate the acceptance of wind-power projects.
Formulate questions that triggered and fostered positive exchange.
Build on the skills, capacities, resources, and ideas of citizens.
Collect feedback through appreciative inquiries.
Properly adopt Citizen Science, collective deliberation, and co-creation approaches.
Objectives
Evaluation of the impacts on the biodiversity (terrestrial and marine fauna), estimation of wind resources availability and their consequences on land and sea use.
Evaluation of how wind farms affect the local communities and addressing issues concerning governance, regulation, health, safety and landscape impacts.
Identification of the best areas for wind power farms deployment, while assessing through validated models how wind turbines impact on the local environment and identify methods to foster social acceptance.
Validation of modelling tools and development of guidelines to deliver clear overviews of the cumulative impacts of wind installations and facilitate the identification of future areas of deployment (local, regional, national and European level).
Implementation of a Web-GIS interactive forum where stakeholders and local communities can exchange information, ideas and inputs to support the planning of new wind turbines and wind parks.
Development of an immersive 3D environment that allows stakeholders to visualise and better understand the impacts and the trade-offs of wind energy development in their communities, in order to promote social awareness and early engagement of the citizens.
Development of a framework for wind farm planning. It will include guidelines for participatory processes based on the interaction and the opinions of the citizens exchanged on the Web-GIS forum, which will be directly accounted for in decision making. This process strengthens public awareness and knowledge, and participation procedures will be democratised.