Local input crucial to adoption of wind farms

Study finds when residents don’t help plan or benefit from technology, they resist it

Involving community members in wind-farm planning and ensuring nearby residents benefit from turbines would go a long way toward winning local buy-in for such projects, a new Canadian study concludes.

The study, published in the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, notes that fast-paced development and limits on local decisionmaking has resulted in strong opposition to wind projects.

“This comparative case study of policy programs in Canada highlights stark differences in various aspects of perceived economic benefits and support for local wind-energy development,” the authors write. Chad Walker and Jamie Baxter with Western University’s department of geography compare approaches to wind-energy development in southwestern Ontario and Nova Scotia.

In Ontario, for example, the study notes that the 2009 Green Energy Act limits community involvement during planning stages, resulting in criticism of a top-down, corporateled pattern of development in which almost all of the province’s more than 6,000 turbines are corporately owned outside their host communities.

Nova Scotia, on the other hand, has made a concerted effort to support community-owned development and keep the economic benefits in the province, the study says.

“In Nova Scotia, support for local wind projects was three times higher and perceptions of health effects were three times lower.”