Energy justice in wind energy development-Strengthening local acceptance through financial participation?

Onshore wind energy development is often delayed or even prevented by local resistance. Against this backdrop, we dis-cuss financial participation as a measure to promote local ac-ceptance by positively influencing the perceived experience of justice. Building on the concept of energy justice, this paper in-vestigates the extent to which different forms of financial par-ticipation are suitable for better distributing costs and ben-efits, creating opportunities for participation, and examining who can participate financially. In addition to a comprehensive literature review, interviews were conducted with wind turbine planners and operators. These show that stakeholders engage in financial participation to different degrees across different projects and that the preferred form of participation varies from one region to another. Moreover, no model of financial participation appears to be suited to address all dimensions of energy justice, as all models are characterised by certain advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the availability of financial participation options alone is unlikely to increase lo-cal acceptance. Such options can, however, be effective when combined with other measures to increase acceptance.