Role of community acceptance in sustainable bioenergy projects in India

Vimal K. Eswarlal*, Geoffrey Vasudevan, Prasanta K. Dey, Padma Vasudevan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Community acceptance has been identified as one of the key requirements for a sustainable bioenergy project. However less attention has been paid to this aspect from developing nations and small projects perspective. Therefore this research examines the role of community acceptance for sustainable small scale bioenergy projects in India. While addressing the aim, this work identifies influence of community over bioenergy projects, major concerns of communities regarding bioenergy projects and factors influencing perceptions of communities about bioenergy projects. The empirical research was carried out on four bioenergy companies in India as case studies. It has been identified that communities have significant influence over bioenergy projects in India. Local air pollution, inappropriate storage of by-products and credibility of developer are identified as some of the important concerns. Local energy needs, benefits to community from bioenergy companies, level of trust on company and relationship between company and the community are some of the prime factors which influence community's perception on bioenergy projects. This research sheds light on important aspects related to community acceptance of bioenergy projects, and this information would help practitioners in understanding the community perceptions and take appropriate actions to satisfy them.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)333-343
Number of pages11
JournalEnergy Policy
Volume73
Early online date2 Jun 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2014

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Energy policy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Eswarlal, VK, Vasudevan, G, Dey, PK & Vasudevan, P, 'Role of community acceptance in sustainable bioenergy projects in India' Energy policy, vol. 73 (2014) DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.04.019

Funding: DST, India and RCUK under Science Bridge project funding (EP/G039992/1).

Keywords

  • bioenergy
  • community acceptance
  • public perception

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