Energy: ENEA in the EU project for sustainable development of wind energy

Improving social acceptability and promoting sustainable development of wind power in some regions of six European countries (Italy, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain), where wind energy production is limited.

This is the objective of the European WinWind project, funded by the EU Program Horizon 2020 and coordinated for Italy by ENEA and Ecoazioni, with the involvement of the Lazio and Abruzzo regions.

Thanks to a social inclusive approach, the project has analyzed the socio-economic and environmental characteristics of the participating Regions with the aim of developing tailor-made solutions to accelerate wind market development, even where there are barriers hindering its social acceptability.

In order to overcome these obstacles WinWind conducted a comparative analysis of 10 best practices selected across Europe and tested some of them, moving them to local, regional and national contexts different than those in which they showed encouraging results.

In particular, the good practices moved included Repowering in Abruzzo, i.e. the renewal of existing wind farms, with high rates of recovery and reuse of infrastructures and reduction of visual impact and tax cuts and economic incentives for 1600 families in Tula, the Sardinian town which houses one of the largest wind farms in Italy.

Among the social acceptance factors found in the good practices that WinWind examined, those with the greatest impact are connected to three key elements: decision-making, economic benefits and trust in the subjects involved (Public administration, operators, etc.).

"As it emerged also in the international seminar on good practices we hosted at ENEA, favorable regulatory frameworks and financial incentives promoting citizens' direct participation in production, consumption and energy distribution, are crucial.

The active commitment of citizens and the creation of energy communities are important factors for spreading socially-inclusive wind energy. Good practices enable us to derive common denominators to support the achievement of social acceptability objectives of wind energy in different local situations", ENEA researcher Tania Giuffrida pointed out.

In addition to Lazio and Abruzzo, the European regions involved in the WinWind project are Thuringia and Saxony (Germany), the entire territory of Latvia, the area of Central Norway, the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Poland) and the Balearic Islands (Spain).

For more information:

https://winwind-project.eu/project-it/ - Tania Giuffrida, Monitoring and Evaluation of Technologies Service, tania.giuffrida@enea.it