Second policy white paper on socio-political, community and market acceptance

The research published in this publication was carried out with the support of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) as part of the SWEET consortium EDGE. The authors bear sole responsibility for the conclusions and the results presented in this publication. We thank Jürg
Rohrer and Tobias Schmidt for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Switzerland has committed itself to international climate goals, the achievement of which depends significantly on transforming the energy system toward renewable energies while moving away from fossil fuels. Although the Swiss population has repeatedly reaffirmed its support for these goals, and despite the fact that the necessary technologies such as hydropower, photovoltaics (PV), or wind energy have been available, their construction has been challenging. This White Paper analyses the seeming inconsistency between general energy transition support by stakeholders and the low rates of actual installations being built by drawing on the concept of \textit{social acceptance}. It provides three contributions:
First, it shows that a nuanced understanding is required of what type of acceptance is necessary in which situation and by whom to successfully build renewable capacity. Second, it presents new data on the socio-political acceptance of various energy sources and fundamental energy policy principles. While this general form of social acceptance is often insufficient to actually implement associated projects and measures, it is nonetheless indispensable: If acceptance is lacking even at this abstract and hypothetical level, concrete implementation is often impossible. Based on this data, three groups of energy sources can be distinguished: the "Public Favourites" (large-scale hydropower and rooftop PV), the "Non-Starters" (gas-fired combined cycle power plants and electricity imports), and the group "Debated but Viable" (currently hotly debated technologies such as wind energy, open-space PV or nuclear energy). Third, the White Paper presents six research examples that analyse specific technologies and different dimensions of acceptance. They discuss the conditions under which high socio-political acceptance can be translated into successful projects (community acceptance) or market products (market acceptance).
Finally, the White Paper formulates five recommendations to facilitate the implementation of renewable energy technologies. As social acceptance is a collective task, its generation cannot be allocated to a single stakeholder group. Rather, all involved stakeholder groups should consider the five recommendations from their respective perspectives.